Gutenberg Exhibit - Armenian Mirror-Spectator
Gutenberg Exhibit - Armenian Mirror-Spectator
Gutenberg Exhibit - Armenian Mirror-Spectator
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<strong>Mirror</strong>-<strong>Spectator</strong><br />
THE ARMENIAN<br />
Volume LXXXIII, NO. 30, Issue 4275<br />
YEREVAN (ArmeniaNow) — Armenia has<br />
accused Azerbaijan of making false comments<br />
after an official in Baku said his<br />
country made new suggestions regarding<br />
the Karabagh settlement at the latest meeting<br />
with international mediators in Paris.<br />
Answering a media question regarding<br />
the statement by Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign<br />
minister that the <strong>Armenian</strong> side<br />
turned down certain suggestions put forward<br />
by the Azerbaijani side during the<br />
meeting in France, <strong>Armenian</strong> Foreign<br />
Ministry Spokesman Tigran Balayan said:<br />
“The Azerbaijani side has not put forward<br />
F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3<br />
The First English Language <strong>Armenian</strong> Weekly in the United States Since 1932<br />
any suggestion during the recent meeting<br />
of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the<br />
Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan and<br />
the co-chairs in Paris. Moreover, the<br />
Azerbaijani side still has not publicized on<br />
the website of the Ministry of Foreign<br />
Affairs the agreement agreed upon by the<br />
ministers and the co-chairs. And the<br />
spokesman of the Azerbaijani Ministry of<br />
Foreign Affairs attempts to render false<br />
comments regarding the meeting. The<br />
same happened with the agreed message of<br />
the previous meeting in Paris. This is nothing<br />
more than an intention to mislead its<br />
own public, which is so characteristic for<br />
Azerbaijan.”<br />
“The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of<br />
Azerbaijan is right only in one thing: in Paris<br />
the approaches of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Foreign<br />
Minister did not differ<br />
from the approaches<br />
expressed previously.<br />
That is natural;<br />
Armenia’s position<br />
has been and is in line<br />
with the approaches<br />
of the international<br />
community expressed<br />
by the three cochairs,”<br />
continued<br />
Balayan. “Yet, the<br />
Azerbaijani side obsti-<br />
$ 2.00<br />
Paruyr Hayrikyan not to Seek Delay in Election Schedule<br />
Candidate Shot outside His Home<br />
On January 31 in Yerevan<br />
YEREVAN (Reuters/Arminfo) — An<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> presidential candidate who<br />
was shot last week will not seek a postponement<br />
to this month’s election to<br />
avoid the risk of further instability in the<br />
former Soviet republic, his lawyer and<br />
other backers said on Tuesday.<br />
Hayrikyan was shot in the shoulder on<br />
January 31 near his home in Yerevan.<br />
He could have asked the<br />
Constitutional Court for a two-week postponement<br />
of the February 18 vote, which<br />
would have raised the prospect of instability<br />
in the republic in the volatile South<br />
Caucasus region that carries oil and natural<br />
gas to Europe.<br />
Hayrikyan did not want to let that happen,<br />
a spokesman said.<br />
See ELECTION, page 2<br />
Armenia Accuses Azerbaijan of Making ‘False Comments’ on Paris Meeting<br />
Shant Hovhannisyan as Gen. Garegin Njdeh<br />
Film Based on Life of Garegin Njdeh<br />
Is Hit With Audiences in Armenia<br />
FILM<br />
YEREVAN (ArmeniaNow) — Pan<strong>Armenian</strong> Media Group company’s<br />
film “Garegin Njdeh,” dedicated to the 21st anniversary of<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> army, tells the story of<br />
national hero, Gen. Garegin Njdeh, his life<br />
and military path.<br />
The film premiered at Moscow Cinema on<br />
January 27 and 28, but social networks and<br />
media have been discussing it for the past two weeks. The most criticized part is a<br />
fragment (misjudged from the trailer) where the actor embodying Njdeh, Artashes<br />
Alexanyan, fiercely responds “I am Garegin Njdeh.” A number of mocking videos<br />
were made and placed on Youtube, which also fed the Azeri media.<br />
“Only after watching the film one can be entitled to criticism or praise. But it’s a<br />
trailer. It is used for advertising purposes, it is unacceptable to take that one sentence<br />
and make a big deal out of it. I see it as betrayal and desecration. Azerbaijan<br />
proclaims a murderer as national hero, and we, like traitors, defame our prophet,”<br />
Alexanyan told ArmeniaNow. “And by the way, the audience stood up and applauded<br />
after both showings, which speaks about their good impressions of the film.”<br />
see NJDEH, page 16<br />
Presidential candidate Paruyr Hayrikyan gets a visit from fellow candidate and current<br />
president, Serge Sargisian.<br />
By Nazik Armenakyan<br />
Tigran Balayan<br />
nately continues to reject or attempts to<br />
revise all the proposals made by the Co-<br />
Chairs, which were repeated also during the<br />
latest meeting in Paris.”<br />
Domestic Violence<br />
Takes a Toll in<br />
Armenia<br />
By Gayane Abrahamyan<br />
YEREVAN (Eurasia.net) — Increasingly,<br />
the issue of domestic violence in Armenia<br />
is a topic for public discussion. Yet, greater<br />
attention to the issue has not yet translated<br />
into an expansion of programs to alleviate<br />
suffering and address policy shortcomings.<br />
In 2012, Armenia set a grim record for<br />
domestic violence when six women, ranging<br />
in age from 21 to 50, died over the<br />
course of six months in incidents involving<br />
their husbands or fathers-in-law.<br />
Collectively, the six dead women left behind<br />
12 children. No official registry of domesticviolence<br />
attacks exists in Armenia. But a<br />
2008 survey of 1,000 <strong>Armenian</strong> women by<br />
Amnesty International found that more<br />
than three out of 10 had suffered from<br />
physical abuse, and 66 percent from psychological<br />
abuse.<br />
The outcry over the recent deaths<br />
prompted activists to believe that the<br />
see VIOLENCE, page 2<br />
NEWS INBRIEF<br />
NKR Foreign Minister<br />
Congratulates Kerry<br />
STEPANAKERT (Armenpress) — Foreign Minister<br />
of the Nagorno Karabagh (Artsakh) Republic<br />
Karen Mirzoyan sent a congratulatory message to<br />
Sen. John Kerry on the occasion of his appointment<br />
as the US secretary of state.<br />
In the message, Mirzoyan extended his good<br />
wishes to Kerry in his new role.<br />
“We highly appreciate the mediation efforts of<br />
the United States and are confident that during<br />
your tenure the US, along with the Russian<br />
Federation and France, will further contribute to<br />
the peaceful settlement of the conflict between<br />
Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh based on principles<br />
of international law, respect for human rights<br />
and fundamental freedoms.”<br />
Mirzoyan also expressed his gratitude for the assistance<br />
the US rendered to the people of Artsakh.<br />
Istanbul Street to Be<br />
Named after Hrant<br />
Dink<br />
ISTANBUL (Armenpress) — The Malatia<br />
Municipality has made a decision to name the<br />
street where Hrant Dink, the former editor-in-chief<br />
of the Istanbul-based Agos newspaper was born,<br />
after him. Agos, in a report said that Malatia Mayor<br />
Ahmet Çakir had communicated the decision.<br />
Çakir noted that there are a number of streets in<br />
Malatia bearing the same names and that while the<br />
municipality was discussing renaming them, they<br />
decided to pay attention to the people who were<br />
born on those streets and renaming the streets for<br />
them.<br />
Dink was killed on January 19, 2007.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> School<br />
Damaged in Aleppo<br />
ALEPPO (Armenpress) — Aleppo was the site of several<br />
armed clashes on January 31. Berio National<br />
Primacy Press Secretary Jirayr Reisyan said one of<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> schools located in Ashrafie district<br />
was damaged, with several windows broken in the<br />
blasts. The pupils were evacuated for security reasons.<br />
The explosions did not take place in <strong>Armenian</strong>populated<br />
districts, though they did occur in areas<br />
directly neighboring the <strong>Armenian</strong> communities.<br />
Regarding plans to open the Aleppo airport,<br />
Reisyan said, “There was no clear news regarding<br />
the opening, yet the state is making efforts to reopen<br />
it.” Reisyan did not confirm the news of<br />
Hovsep Abgaryan, a young <strong>Armenian</strong>, murdered<br />
and robbed days before.<br />
According to the United Nations’ data, more than<br />
60,000 people were killed during 22 months ongoing<br />
clashes in Syria, including four dozen<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s.<br />
INSIDE<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong><br />
<strong>Exhibit</strong> Page 10<br />
INDEX<br />
Arts and Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10<br />
Armenia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2<br />
Community News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5<br />
Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14<br />
International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 4
2<br />
News From Armenia<br />
State Youth Orchestra of<br />
Perform in Gumri<br />
GUMRI (Pann<strong>Armenian</strong>.net)) — The SStaatee YYouth<br />
Orchestra of Armenia, led by artistic director and<br />
conductor Sergey Smbatyan, presented a new concert<br />
program on February 7 at Vardan Achemyan<br />
State Drama Theater.<br />
The orcchesttraa pperformed claassicaall compposiittions<br />
and music from Hollywood movies.<br />
The program included pieces by Alexander<br />
Arutiunian, Dmitri Shostakovich, Edward<br />
Mirzoyan, Edvard Grieg, Monty Norman, John<br />
Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Ennio<br />
Morricone and Nino Rota.<br />
Armenia to Get $51.4<br />
Million From IMF After<br />
Passing Loan Review<br />
WAASHINNGTONN (Bloomberg) — The Inntternaational<br />
Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a disbursement of<br />
$51.4 million for Armenia after completing a fifth<br />
review of the country’s economy.<br />
The loan is part of a three-year, $403 million<br />
accord agreed with the Washington-based lender in<br />
June 2010, it said on Tuesday in a report.<br />
Armenia’s economic growth is forecast to slow to<br />
4.3 percent this year compared to 6.2 percent last<br />
year, the fund said in the report. The country’s budget<br />
deficit is expected to widen to 2.6 percent this<br />
year from 2.1 percent in 2012 and inflation will<br />
remain about 4 percent this year, the IMF said.<br />
Film Exposes Turkish<br />
State Policy of Erasing<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Culture<br />
YEREVAN (Hetq) — On January 24, the documentary<br />
film “Crime after the Great Crime,” premiered.<br />
The film exposes the ongoing Turkish state policy<br />
of destroying all traces of <strong>Armenian</strong> culture in<br />
Western Armenia.<br />
Prepared by the Research on <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Architecture Foundation, the film chronicles<br />
Western <strong>Armenian</strong> cultural monuments before and<br />
after the 1915 Genocide.<br />
The film states that pre-1915 there were approximately<br />
170,000 cultural monuments in Western<br />
Armenia, of which, a mere 2-3 percent still remain<br />
intact today.<br />
The documentary is in Eastern <strong>Armenian</strong> and is<br />
narrated by Samuel Karapetyan.<br />
President Sargisian Vows<br />
To Fight for Genocide<br />
Recognition<br />
YEREVAN (Armenpress) — The centennial of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide is an important event which<br />
must not be the end of the efforts aimed at seeking<br />
its recognition, said President Serge Sargisian during<br />
a meeting with the voters in the Malatia-<br />
Sebastia district, which took place on February 5,<br />
during his campaign to seek reelection.<br />
“The 100th anniversary of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Genocide is just a harbor, an important and crucial<br />
one. We will struggle for the recognition of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide as long as needed,” Sargisian<br />
said. “The words ‘genocide’ and ‘eghern’ are the<br />
same, and even not using the word ‘genocide,’ the<br />
US president has said everything,” he said, adding,<br />
“we would be grateful to every nation recognizing<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide.”<br />
Sargisian assured his audience that comparing<br />
the 100th anniversary of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide<br />
with a tsunami, as done by the Turkish press is<br />
silly. Recognition of the Genocide is not just a<br />
moral issue but also an issue of security, since by<br />
denying the Genocide, Turkey is endangering<br />
Armenia’s national security, he said.<br />
Sargisian said that a new committee headed by<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> president had been formed for organizing<br />
events dedicated to 100th anniversary of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide.<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
ARMENIA<br />
Hayrikyan not to Seek Delay in Election<br />
ELECTION, from page 1<br />
“The goal of the attack was to kill<br />
Hayrikyan and organize a new election.<br />
Taking that into consideration, we want<br />
to make sure they do not attain their<br />
goal,” Karo Yeghnukyan, a spokesman for<br />
the candidate, said at a news conference.<br />
Stability is vital to the nation of 2.3<br />
million to woo investors and boost an<br />
economy struggling with regional isolation<br />
and the effects of a war with neighboring<br />
Azerbaijan in the 1990s.<br />
Violence flared after Sargisian’s election<br />
in 2008, leaving 10 people dead<br />
when police clashed with supporters of<br />
former president and opposition candidate<br />
Levon Ter-Petrosian who protested<br />
for days on the streets of the capital.<br />
The government imposed a state of<br />
emergency during the unrest in the landlocked<br />
nation that borders Turkey,<br />
Azerbaijan, Iran and Georgia.<br />
Hayrikyan’s lawyer, Levon<br />
Baghdasaryan, confirmed that he<br />
would let the election go ahead as<br />
planned despite difficulties in continuing<br />
his campaign.<br />
Regardless of the fact that as a result of<br />
the assassination attempt insurmountable<br />
hurdles have arisen, Hayrikyan will not<br />
appeal to the Constitutional Court with a<br />
demand to postpone the day of presidential<br />
election,” he said.<br />
Doctors have removed the bullet and<br />
said Hayrikyan’s life was not in danger,<br />
but he remained in the hospital on<br />
Tuesday. Police have not named any suspects.<br />
Hayrikyan, a pro-Western former Soviet<br />
dissident, said hours after the shooting<br />
that he suspected a foreign secret service<br />
and suggested he was referring to Russia,<br />
which is Armenia’s main ally and has a<br />
VIOLENCE, from page 1<br />
government would start making state<br />
funds available for the protection and<br />
treatment of victims of domestic violence.<br />
But on January 21, the government<br />
blocked passage of what would<br />
have been the country’s first domesticviolence<br />
law, saying that revisions<br />
should be made to existing legislation,<br />
or to the bill itself.<br />
In the absence of government funding,<br />
non-governmental organizations<br />
(NGOs) are struggling to meet needs.<br />
“There are many cases, and only NGO<br />
efforts do not suffice,” commented<br />
Susanna Vardanian, director of the<br />
Women’s Rights Center, a Yerevanbased<br />
NGO, which is a backer of the<br />
stalled draft law.<br />
At present, three private domestic-violence<br />
shelters (two in Yerevan and one<br />
in the nearby region of Armavir), along<br />
with several NGO-run hotlines are all<br />
that exist for female domestic violence<br />
victims. Over the past two years, the<br />
Women’s Rights Center, which runs<br />
two hotlines, four regional crisis centers<br />
and one shelter, has received some<br />
2,557 calls from women seeking help,<br />
according to Vardanian.<br />
At a facility run by the charitable<br />
foundation Lighthouse in the village of<br />
Ptghunts, the 55 women residents are<br />
mostly unemployed, and either pregnant<br />
or raising children. The shelter<br />
provides basic job training, as well as<br />
psychological counseling.<br />
For decades, domestic violence was a<br />
topic that not only battered women, but<br />
also officials and law-enforcement<br />
authorities shied away from acknowledging<br />
or discussing. But now, that has<br />
begun to change, with people starting<br />
to be held accountable for abusive<br />
actions.<br />
For example, Haykanush Mikayelian<br />
received a 10-month sentence in 2012<br />
Paruyr Hayrikyan at a press conference<br />
military base on its territory.<br />
Hayrikyan, 63, leads a moderate opposition<br />
party, the National Self-determination<br />
Union and ran for president in 2003.<br />
Washington Concerned<br />
Washington is concerned over the<br />
assassination attempt, US State<br />
Department Spokesperson Victoria<br />
Nuland said at a press briefing last week.<br />
“Obviously we condemn this violence.<br />
We understand that Paruyr Hayrikyan is<br />
in stable condition after being shot by an<br />
unknown gunman and that the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> police have promised a full<br />
investigation.”<br />
“We understand that there are some<br />
reports now that there may be some<br />
postponement of the elections which<br />
were scheduled to take place on<br />
February 18th under constitutional provisions<br />
if he’s unable to campaign. We<br />
obviously call on <strong>Armenian</strong>s to settle<br />
this constitutionally in a way that<br />
for her role in the abuse of her 23-yearold<br />
daughter-in-law, Mariam Gevorgian,<br />
over a prolonged period starting in<br />
2009. According to testimony at the<br />
trial, Mikayelian burned Gevorgian’s<br />
body with an iron and a cigarette<br />
lighter, beat her regularly and kept her<br />
locked indoors under key.<br />
Although police officers are arguably<br />
now more aware of the domestic-violence<br />
problem than several years ago,<br />
they are often left flummoxed by the<br />
lack of state-run shelters and legal<br />
mechanisms to prevent ongoing abuse<br />
of a woman by a husband or relative.<br />
“As soon as it comes to taking actual<br />
steps, we seem to be faced with the<br />
same resistance,” remarked Lara<br />
Aharomian, director of the Women’s<br />
Resource Center, another Yerevanbased<br />
NGO active in addressing domestic<br />
violence.<br />
The draft domestic-violence law that<br />
the government rejected earlier in<br />
January would have tried to strengthen<br />
official measures to protect victims by<br />
introducing restraining orders and<br />
expanding the number of shelters,<br />
among other measures.<br />
Activists believe that the six fatal<br />
domestic-violence cases in 2012 might<br />
have been prevented if Armenia had<br />
had a law outlining responses to the<br />
abuse, and, correspondingly, providing<br />
state assistance for shelters. “[T]he law<br />
proposes the creation of a number of<br />
facilities, [and the] training of police,<br />
which are preventive measures,” said<br />
Anna Nikoghosian, a project manager<br />
for the non-governmental organization<br />
A Society Without Violence. If shelters<br />
had existed near the homes of the six<br />
murdered women, all of whom lived outside<br />
of Yerevan, “some . . . might be<br />
alive today.”<br />
“There are many badly in need of support,<br />
but it is impossible to house all of<br />
ensures that these elections go forward<br />
in a way that is free and fair and protects<br />
the rights of all candidates”, she said.<br />
Sargisian visited the wounded candidate<br />
at the St. Gregory the Illuminator<br />
Medical Center to meet Hayrikyan.<br />
Hayrikyan repeated his opinion voiced<br />
earlier that “Russian imperialism” is<br />
behind his assassination attempt, while<br />
divine intervention is to be thanked for<br />
his survival.<br />
“Can you imagine a 25-centimeter bullet<br />
piercing a human body and that person<br />
staying alive? I am alive by the will<br />
of our Lord, however it does not mean<br />
that my opponent missed by mistake. He<br />
did what he had planned to do, but<br />
angels did not let it happen,” said<br />
Hayrikyan.<br />
To the reporters’ question when he<br />
was planning to resume the campaign,<br />
he said, “I am already back at work.”<br />
(Armenpress and ArmeniaNow contributed<br />
to this report.)<br />
Domestic Violence Takes a Toll in Armenia<br />
them in only three shelters,” agreed<br />
Lighthouse Director Naira Muradian.<br />
Lala Ghazarian, head of the Ministry<br />
of Labor and Social Welfare’s<br />
Department for Family, Women and<br />
Childcare Issues, stressed that the<br />
domestic-violence bill isn’t gone for<br />
good. “It just needs some changes” to<br />
bring it into line with existing criminal<br />
law, she said. “We are all well aware that<br />
we need a law, shelter, trained policemen,<br />
functional tools, but it implies<br />
extensive work to change legislation,<br />
and it will be done.”<br />
Some government members have<br />
said that parliament, now controlled by<br />
the Republican Party of Armenia, could<br />
pass a domestic-violence law by 2014 or<br />
2015, once ongoing amendments to the<br />
criminal code are complete.<br />
Meanwhile, as the topic’s stigma<br />
fades away, many ordinary <strong>Armenian</strong>s<br />
affirm openly that they are eager to find<br />
solutions. In the village of Burastan, 30<br />
kilometers outside of Yerevan, women<br />
in 2006 told EurasiaNet.org that questions<br />
about domestic violence “destroy<br />
traditional <strong>Armenian</strong> families.” Seven<br />
years later, they admitted that abuse is<br />
an issue that “has to be addressed.”<br />
“Our children have been growing up<br />
in an atmosphere of beatings and<br />
fights,” commented 67-year-old Karine<br />
Galstian, a mother of four. “Only now<br />
we realize how wrong it is to keep<br />
silent, because we should at least teach<br />
our daughters that the husband has to<br />
respect his wife, should not beat her,<br />
should not humiliate her in front of the<br />
children.”<br />
In the absence of further government<br />
measures against domestic violence,<br />
such realizations could make a critical<br />
difference.<br />
(Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter<br />
for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.)
ANKARA (Hürriyet Daily News) — A<br />
suicide bomb attack at the US<br />
Embassy, killed one Turkish security<br />
guard along with the attacker, Ankara<br />
Gov. Aladdin Yüksel said.<br />
A woman, who was at the embassy<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R 3<br />
for business, was also injured.<br />
The explosion occurred at the<br />
entrance used by embassy personnel<br />
and their visitors, CNN Türk reported.<br />
A security guard working the X-ray<br />
machine at the embassy’s entrance<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
FBI Joins Search for Murderer of US Mom<br />
Istanbul Police to Take<br />
DNA Samples<br />
ISTANBUL (Hurriyet) — The FBI is<br />
playing a significant role in the investigation<br />
into the death of a New York City<br />
woman found dead in Istanbul while on<br />
a vacation, a US congressman<br />
has said.<br />
Rep. Michael Grimm, a former<br />
FBI agent, said US investigators<br />
were invited by<br />
Turkish authorities to assist<br />
as they try to find out what<br />
happened to Sarai Sierra, the<br />
Associated Press reported<br />
February 4.<br />
Grimm and Sierra’s parents,<br />
Betzaida and Dennis<br />
Jimenez, said the family’s<br />
immediate concern was repatriating<br />
Sierra’s body to the<br />
US. The Istanbul police will<br />
collect blood, DNA and saliva<br />
samples from 21 people who<br />
testified earlier about the<br />
death of Sierra, who had<br />
been missing since January<br />
21.<br />
Sierra’s body was found in<br />
Sarayburnu, 13 days after she went missing,<br />
with evidence of head injuries. Her<br />
jewelry was still on her, but her tablet<br />
computer and smart phone were gone. A<br />
blanket was found nearby, suggesting<br />
she may have been taken from another<br />
crime scene to Sarayburnu. Police have<br />
been searching for the tablet and the<br />
mobile phone in the surrounding area.<br />
The samples are expected to be collected<br />
February 5 upon a demand by<br />
Istanbul prosecutor Hüseyin Kaplan,<br />
Dogan news agency reported. The prosecutor<br />
had listened earlier in the day to<br />
Sierra’s husband Steven Sierra and her<br />
brother David Jimenez, who came to<br />
Turkey to search for their lost relative.<br />
The family collected Sierra’s body later<br />
on February 4 from the Forensic<br />
Medicine Institute following a postmortem.<br />
Her body was taken to a morgue at an<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> church, Surp Yerrortutyun,<br />
before being sent to the US.<br />
Preliminary autopsy results from<br />
The body of the late Sarai Sierra is taken to the Surp Yerrortutyn<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Church.<br />
Sierra’s body suggest the cause of death<br />
was a single blow to the head. There<br />
was no evidence of sexual assault,<br />
according to initial reports. However,<br />
the results of the full autopsy report will<br />
reportedly be announced in three<br />
months. Crime scene investigators<br />
arrived on the scene early on February<br />
4, accompanied by security officials and<br />
canine units.<br />
The Fatih Municipality cleared the<br />
bushes from the area to make the<br />
search easier for officials, according to<br />
Anatolia news agency. Some 260 policemen<br />
searched for Sierra using Istanbul’s<br />
security cameras after she was reported<br />
missing on January 25.<br />
Sierra’s mother said her two grandsons<br />
did not yet know what had hap-<br />
pened to their mother. “Their father is<br />
going to talk to them when he comes<br />
back, and we’ll all be there to support<br />
him,” she told NBC’s “Today Show” on<br />
February 5.<br />
“I wanted to see my daughter alive. At<br />
least we have closure. At least they<br />
found her,” her mother said in tears.<br />
“There are some people<br />
who are still waiting<br />
for their loved<br />
ones,” the New York<br />
Daily News quoted<br />
her as saying.<br />
Sierra’s sister<br />
could not join them<br />
“because she’s too<br />
broken. All she does<br />
is cry.” “I wanted to<br />
see my daughter, her<br />
beautiful smile. She<br />
was full of life. She<br />
loved her children,<br />
her husband. She was<br />
my friend. We did<br />
many things together.”<br />
“We traveled<br />
together. This was<br />
the first trip she took by herself, taking<br />
photos and photos she took,” Sierra’s<br />
mother said. She thanked the Turkish<br />
police and an association in Istanbul for<br />
missing loved ones for sharing Sierra’s<br />
photo while she was missing. Her brother’s<br />
church also helped fund the trip to<br />
bring her back, mom said.<br />
Sierra’s father, Dennis, recalled when<br />
going to pick her up from the airport. “I<br />
didn’t want her to go, but she wanted to<br />
go because this was an opportunity for<br />
her to sight see and to pursue her photography<br />
hobby,” he said.<br />
“Turkey was a land of rich culture<br />
and ancient history. She was very fascinated<br />
with that.” He said she kept them<br />
abreast of every side trip and move she<br />
made and talked daily on Skype.<br />
Outlaw Group Targets US Embassy in Ankara, Kills Two<br />
Britain’s Last Remaining <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide<br />
Survivor’s Death Ruled ‘Accident’<br />
STROUD, England (Hetq) — Genocide survivor, Astrid Aghajanian’s death<br />
was ruled accidental this week after a coroner’s investigation.<br />
The 99-year-old was believed to be Britain’s last survivor of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Genocide. Aghajanian was 2 when the Ottoman rulers began the annihilation<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong>s and her father was killed. She was deported with her mother<br />
and marched into the Deir ez-Zor desert with her grandmother and baby<br />
brother.<br />
Her mother refused to let Aghajanian go with officials, who were burning<br />
children alive, and the pair hid under a pile of corpses for a night before venturing<br />
into the desert alone.<br />
They were found by a Bedouin tribesman, who then sold them to another.<br />
They lived in hiding until a Turkish officer took them to the city of Deir<br />
ez-Zor.<br />
They made their way to relatives and began rebuilding their lives before<br />
moving to Jerusalem in the 1920s.<br />
Aghajanian became a teacher, married her husband in 1942 and the pair<br />
had two daughters before fighting in the West Bank broke out. The family<br />
fled to Cyprus, where Aghajanian volunteered for the Red Cross and ran a<br />
kindergarten.<br />
The family had to flee again during the Turkish invasion in 1974 and they<br />
emigrated to England as refugees.<br />
At a Gloucester inquest into her death yesterday, her GP Noah Thomson<br />
said she was in good health before the unwitnessed fall.<br />
In a statement Thompson wrote: “She was an incredible person I feel humbled<br />
and honored to have attended [to her] and I wish her family well.”<br />
Deputy Gloucestershire coroner, David Dooley said Aghajanian, who died<br />
at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on May 11, was a “99-year-old with an<br />
interesting, but traumatic early history.”<br />
was killed in the explosion, which<br />
occurred as the suspected suicide<br />
bomber was passing through the<br />
machine, the report said.<br />
Bomb experts are currently investigating<br />
at the site. Police have taken<br />
precautions against the possibility of<br />
a second attack.<br />
Turkish Interior Minister Muammer<br />
Güler arrived at the US Embassy in<br />
Ankara following the blast.<br />
US Consulate in Turkey advises its<br />
citizens against visiting its missions<br />
until further notice.<br />
Security cameras were not recording<br />
at the moment of the blast due to<br />
a power outage in the area. It is not<br />
clear whether or not the embassy<br />
building was the only building experiencing<br />
the outage.<br />
According to US embassy personnel,<br />
there was no damage inside the<br />
embassy.<br />
All US embassy personnel have<br />
been taken to safe-rooms within the<br />
embassy.<br />
The undersecretary of the Foreign<br />
Ministry, Feridun Sinirlioglu, was<br />
reportedly bound for the embassy.<br />
On September 11, 2012, the<br />
anniversary of the 2001 attacks by al-<br />
Qaeda, heavily armed militants<br />
stormed the US consulate in the eastern<br />
Libyan city of Benghazi and<br />
attacked a nearby CIA safe-house.<br />
Four Americans died in the assault,<br />
including US Ambassador Chris<br />
Stevens. President Barack Obama’s<br />
domestic opponents attacked the<br />
administration’s handling of both<br />
security prior to the attack and public<br />
statements afterwards.<br />
International News<br />
Analyst Says Azerbaijan<br />
Risks Label of Aggressor<br />
BAKU (Armenpress) — The Nagorno-Karabagh conflict<br />
is in a “frozen” phase and there is no prospect<br />
for the resolution in near future, according to Mark<br />
Urnov, a Russian political scientist, in an interview<br />
with vesti.az.<br />
“Azerbbaaijaan wwaants to taakke NKR uunder itts juurisdiction,<br />
while Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia will<br />
never agree with it,” he underlined.<br />
Referring to the exploitation of Stepanakert airport,<br />
he noted that if Azerbaijan shoots down even<br />
a military plane, Azerbaijan will certainly face punishment.<br />
“The international community is tired of<br />
local conflicts. It is waitingg only for peace from the<br />
parties of the conflict. If Azerbaijan strikes even a<br />
single airplane, the reaction of international community<br />
will be not simply negative but extremely<br />
harsh. I do not rule out international sanctions<br />
against Azerbaijan. As a result, Azerbaijan risks get<br />
being labeled an aggressor,” Urnov said.<br />
Touching on possible war of the West against<br />
Iran and Azerbaijan’s participation in it, Urnov<br />
said, “This is hardly possible. But in case it starts<br />
and Azerbaijan’s supports the West, one can hardly<br />
hope that the West will support Azerbaijan in<br />
the matter of the Karabagh conflict setttlement.”<br />
Ambassador to Romania<br />
Discusses NKR on TV<br />
BUCHAREST (Armenpress) — <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Ambassador to Romania Hamlet Gasparian was<br />
hosted by Romanian DIGI 24 channel on February<br />
2. On the TV program, lasting 30 minutes, the<br />
ambassador spoke about the Artsakh (Nagorno<br />
Karabagh) stalemate, the current situation in<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>-Romanian trade, as well as the history of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> community, highlighting efforts by members<br />
of the community to keep their <strong>Armenian</strong> heritage.<br />
The program started with a video on <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
history, including the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide and<br />
Artsakh war. The author of BBooookk ooff WWhhiissppeerrss,<br />
Varujan Vosganian, and the book’s <strong>Armenian</strong> translation,<br />
were discussed during the TV program.<br />
Court of Human Rights<br />
Returned 16 Verdicts<br />
Against Armenia in 2012<br />
STRASBOURG (Arminfo) — In 2012, the European<br />
Court of Human Rights attained 16 verdicts<br />
against the Republic of Armenia.<br />
The court received 238 claims from 3,274 people<br />
from Armenia in 2012. This is the highest number<br />
registered over the last four years.<br />
The verdicts against Armenia in 2012 were<br />
chiefly regarding freedom and immunity of citizens,<br />
their right for fair proceedings as well as freedom<br />
of conscience and religion. Since the moment of<br />
Armenia’s joining the Council of Europe the<br />
European Court of Human Rights attained 46 verdicts<br />
against Armenia with a demand to compensate<br />
560,000 euros. According to Armenia’s Justice<br />
Ministry, the government has already repaid compensation<br />
in the amount of about 400,000 euros.<br />
The Russian Federation is the leader on the number<br />
of cases being investigated by the European<br />
Court of Human Rights (28,593 cases).<br />
Bishop Promotes Ties<br />
With Minorities<br />
ISFAHAN, Iran (IRNA) — The head of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Diocese of Isfahan, Archimandrite Babken Charian,<br />
said the international community should look at<br />
Iran as a role model for proper treatment and protection<br />
of religious minorities.<br />
In a meeting with Governor General Alireza<br />
Zaker-Esfahani Wednesday evening, the bishop<br />
praised the Islamic Republic for having managed to<br />
establish positive relations with members of religious<br />
minorities.<br />
Zaker-Esfahani, stressed that promoting positive<br />
interaction among religions should be a priority in<br />
the global community.
4<br />
BEIRUT — More than 200 guests came out<br />
for the AGBU Young Professionals of Lebanon’s<br />
(YP Lebanon) first Rising Talents Art Fair last<br />
month, prompting the group to turn an inaugural<br />
event into an annual tradition. The exhibit,<br />
which featured the work of local <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
and non-<strong>Armenian</strong> artists, brought in close to<br />
$3,000, 100 percent of which will benefit directly<br />
the three AGBU schools in the greater Beirut<br />
area. The schools are determined to meet the<br />
needs of the steady stream of displaced students<br />
arriving from Syria, but they are incurring<br />
significant costs in the process and the YP<br />
donation provides much-needed support.<br />
The call for submissions drew dozens of applications.<br />
On opening night, Thursday, December<br />
13, 2012, guests crowded the popular downtown<br />
restaurant SUZ, where 10 up-and-coming artists<br />
were spotlighted: Virgine Ashkharian, Krikor<br />
Avessian, Diane Ayoub, Norayr Boudakian, Maral<br />
Der Boghossian, Karen Klink, Angela<br />
Mahserejian Manouchakian, Boghos Naziguian,<br />
Antoine Saliba and Karine Sarkissian. Each presented<br />
three pieces in different styles and mediums,<br />
showcasing their work and selling the<br />
majority of their pieces. As YP Lebanon<br />
Coordinator Sarine Karajerjian commented, “We<br />
were so pleased with the great response of applicants,<br />
as our mission was two-fold: one, to<br />
encourage and promote the talents of local<br />
young artists who may not otherwise have had a<br />
platform for their work and two, to provide the<br />
Lebanese community with affordable art.”<br />
Also on sale throughout the three-night<br />
fundraiser was a special collection of limitededition<br />
prints donated by John Guvder, the<br />
noted Lebanese artist. Guvder, who received<br />
the Arshile Gorky medal from the Republic of<br />
Armenia on the same day the YP exhibit was<br />
unveiled, had much experience to share with<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
the other featured artists. Now 92-years-old,<br />
Guvder was born in Lebanon to a family of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> refugees. He studied in both Paris<br />
and Rome before establishing his own art institute<br />
in Beirut and later joining the city’s<br />
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (the<br />
Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts), where he still<br />
teaches today. Throughout the event, he<br />
engaged each of the participants, and later commented,<br />
“I was extremely happy to present my<br />
work to the local community and to see many<br />
young talents emerging in Lebanon. At my age,<br />
imparting my knowledge to youth makes me<br />
feel that I am in a continuous learning process.”<br />
Proceeds from Guvder’s paintings, as well as<br />
the pieces by the young artists, will provide critical<br />
support to AGBU’s Beirut schools, which<br />
are struggling to meet the needs of scores of<br />
Syrian-<strong>Armenian</strong> students displaced by their<br />
country’s ongoing conflict. In recent weeks,<br />
requests for enrollment in the three local AGBU<br />
schools have more than quadrupled and administrators<br />
are doing everything possible to<br />
ensure that no student has to sacrifice a highquality<br />
education amidst the crisis. The donation<br />
from YP Lebanon will help the schools<br />
serve more Syrian-<strong>Armenian</strong> youth.<br />
The YP Lebanon Rising Talents Art Fair was<br />
made possible by several sponsors: Arame Art<br />
Gallery, Chateau Khoury Wine, Printkom,<br />
Radio Sevan, SUZ and Raffi Tokatlian.<br />
To support AGBU’s humanitarian aid efforts<br />
for Syrian-<strong>Armenian</strong>s, donate online here:<br />
https://donate.agbu.org/agbu-urgent-appeal,<br />
or call +1-855-AID-AGBU (243-2428) Monday<br />
through Friday, during business hours.<br />
Please send checks to: AGBU, Syria<br />
Emergency Fund, 55 East 59th St., New York,<br />
NY 10022. Indicate “Emergency Humanitarian<br />
Fund” in memo line.<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
First Rising Talents Art Fair Draws More than 200 Guests<br />
AGBU YP Lebanon committee members prepare to greet the crowds at the Rising Talents Art Fair in<br />
Beirut.<br />
Tigran Sargisian Discusses <strong>Armenian</strong> Progress<br />
MOSCOW (Armenpress) — In an interview<br />
with Moskovskie Novosti, Prime Minister<br />
Tigran Sargisian spoke about the economic<br />
growth of Armenia, <strong>Armenian</strong>-Georgian relations,<br />
regulation of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict<br />
and <strong>Armenian</strong>-Turkish relations.<br />
The following is an excerpt from the translated<br />
interview, which appeared this week in<br />
Moskovskie Novosti.<br />
Moskovskie Novosti (MN): What was 2012<br />
like for Armenia? What progress was made and<br />
what problems occurred?<br />
Tigran Sargisian (TS): Our political system<br />
proved its vitality, as seen by the successful parliamentary<br />
elections, which were considered by<br />
the international community as the most democratic<br />
in the entire modern history of Armenia.<br />
The GDP grew almost 7 percent in 2012. This is<br />
one of the best results in the post-Soviet era.<br />
And if we take into consideration that Armenia<br />
is in a vulnerable geopolitical state with some of<br />
its neighbors, this is indeed a remarkable result.<br />
MN: Last year Armenia and Russia created a<br />
working group to create a format for <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
participation in the Customs Union.<br />
TS: The matter is not about the absence of<br />
common borders alone. One of the Armenia’s<br />
peculiarities is that the structure of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> economy largely differs from the<br />
countries of the Customs Union, which have<br />
vast energy resources. Armenia was one of the<br />
first CIS countries to join the World Trade<br />
Organization. Therefore it’s necessary to find<br />
the formula for the most efficient instruments<br />
of our cooperation with the union.<br />
MN: Armenia has strained relations with<br />
Turkey and Azerbaijan. Are there any chances<br />
for the regulation of the Nagorno Karabagh<br />
conflict and establishment of <strong>Armenian</strong>-Turkish<br />
relations?<br />
TS: In my opinion, it first depends upon the<br />
political will of Azerbaijan. Armenia has always<br />
adopted a constructive position in the negotiations<br />
process, which means that a mutually<br />
acceptable decision must be made. But unfortunately<br />
our neighbors are not ready for that. In<br />
the case of Turkey, Armenia started negotiations<br />
with Turkey for the establishment of diplomatic<br />
relations and opening the borders without<br />
preconditions. The protocols have been<br />
signed after negotiations and the parliaments<br />
were to suppose to ratify them. Armenia<br />
expressed its willingness to do that, but Turkey<br />
decided to freeze the process.<br />
Members and friends of the AGBU Young Professionals of Lebanon Committee celebrate the success<br />
of the group’s first Rising Talents Art Fair, which raised almost $3,000 to benefit displaced Syrian-<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> youth in the three AGBU schools in greater Beirut.<br />
AGBU Longtime Member Hagop<br />
Altounian Premieres Two New Books<br />
TORONTO — On Sunday, January 13, the former Chair of the AGBU Lebanon<br />
District and the AGBU Toronto Chapter, Hagop Altounian, launched his publications,<br />
Along the Luminous Paths of <strong>Armenian</strong> Culture and Nubar Pasha and Boghos Nubar<br />
Pasha, at the Alex Manoogian Cultural Center.<br />
The book launch drew several audience members and speakers, including Archpriest<br />
Zareh Zargarian, pastor of the Holy Trinity <strong>Armenian</strong> Church of Toronto. Addressing<br />
the crowd, Zargarian, the former religious studies teacher at the AGBU Alex Manoogian<br />
School in Montreal, stressed the importance of passing on the torch of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Cause to younger generations.<br />
Altounian, who will celebrate his 90th birthday this year, looked on while young professionals<br />
Laura Darakjian and Garin Yacoubian read excerpts from his books. The two<br />
were introduced by the event’s moderator, Varak Babian, another member of Toronto’s<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> community.<br />
Along the Luminous Paths of <strong>Armenian</strong> Culture traces the development of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> language, while Nubar Pasha and Boghos Nubar Pasha chronicles the lives<br />
of the legendary <strong>Armenian</strong> leaders. Both draw from Altounian’s decades-long experience<br />
serving the diaspora.<br />
Educator Hasmig Kurdian, who introduced Altounian, commended the critical role<br />
he played within the AGBU Lebanon District, especially during the country’s civil war.<br />
In a letter read by AGBU Toronto Executive Director Salpi Der Ghazarian, AGBU<br />
President Berge Setrakian applauded Altounian for his years of dedication to the organization.<br />
During his presentation, Sarkis Hamboyan, editor of Along the Luminous Paths of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Culture, pointed to the book’s extensive research. Both books were available<br />
for purchase and signing by the author.<br />
Altounian’s book launch was co-sponsored with the Hamazkayin Society’s Klatsor<br />
Chapter. At the author’s request, proceeds from the event’s book sales will benefit both<br />
AGBU Toronto and the Klastor Chapter.<br />
To learn more about AGBU Toronto, visit http://www.agbutoronto.ca/ or write agbutoronto@bellnet.ca.<br />
Author Hagop Altounian (left) presents his new publication alongside editor Sarkis<br />
Hamboyan at the book launch in Toronto’s AGBU Alex Manoogian Cultural Center.
Genocide<br />
Survivor<br />
Ojen Fantazian:<br />
A Tribute<br />
By Tom Vartabedian<br />
BILLERICA, Mass. — Even in death,<br />
Ojen Fantazian has left an indelible<br />
impression.<br />
Dignified to the end, the 99-year-old<br />
Genocide survivor gave her family and<br />
friends another reason to celebrate her<br />
life — and a monumental one at that.<br />
Dozens gathered at St. Stephen’s<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Church in Watertown to pay<br />
their final tributes to a woman who never<br />
wavered, not during the turmoil which<br />
struck her native village of<br />
Chimichgaidzag, nor after the loss of her<br />
husband Harry at an early age, nor after<br />
suffering health problems which cost her<br />
Ojen Fantazian<br />
her physical vitality, yet never her spirit.<br />
She showed up regularly at Genocide<br />
commemorations, often the only survivor<br />
representing her peers; attended church<br />
services with family members; continued<br />
reading her <strong>Armenian</strong> newspapers and<br />
still listened to the opera.<br />
Her death brings the number of remaining<br />
survivors in Merrimack Valley and<br />
Southern New Hampshire to two: Nellie<br />
Nazarian and Thomas Magarian, both in<br />
their centennial years.<br />
As a member of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Genocide Commemorative Committee of<br />
Merrimack Valley, I looked forward to her<br />
annual visits to our observances, much<br />
the same way I did my own mom. And for<br />
good reason.<br />
Aside from the fact both my mother<br />
and Fantazian were both survivors, they<br />
also shared a first name. They would sit<br />
next to one another and bring each other<br />
comfort with their red carnations in hand<br />
and their faces pained with emotion.<br />
The similarities were remarkable. Both<br />
escaped turmoil in their native villages,<br />
my mother from Dikranagert, Fantazian<br />
from Chimichgaidzag. Both succumbed<br />
just short of their 100th year.<br />
As they fled for their lives, they watched<br />
loved ones being deported and persecuted.<br />
see TRIBUTE, page 7<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
Community News<br />
Statue of Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame<br />
Notre Dame’s<br />
Ara Parseghian:<br />
Football Coach, Philanthropist, Founder<br />
MIAMI (FL<strong>Armenian</strong>s) — Earlier this month, the annual College Bowl<br />
Championship Series (BCS) title game was held at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium and<br />
featured top seated Notre Dame versus Alabama. The Crimson Tide rolled over the<br />
Fighting Irish 42-14, handing them their<br />
By Grant Pakhtigian<br />
first and only loss of the season, while celebrating<br />
their third national title in four<br />
years. While reflecting on the game and<br />
Notre Dame’s historic season, I was<br />
inspired to revisit the life of former Notre Dame University head football coach Ara<br />
Raoul Parseghian.<br />
Prior to joining Notre Dame, Parseghian was the head coach at Miami, Ohio,<br />
where he once played from 1946 to 1947 as running back and defensive back. He<br />
also played for the Cleveland Browns from 1948 to 1949.<br />
In 1950 he first began as an assistant coach and later, head coach for the Miami<br />
of Ohio college football team. From 1951-1955, he served as head coach at Miami<br />
and began and ended a career in which few are as accomplished and consistent.<br />
To put into perspective what he did, a 170-58-6 overall record, or equal to an<br />
.836 winning percentage, one must have both feet on the ground with a good dose<br />
of confidence. A football coach is part teacher, part father, modest, a great communicator<br />
and an excellent leader.<br />
From 1956 to 1963, Coach Ara served as head coach for the Northwestern<br />
University football team. Some say that Coach Ara had the most impact at Notre<br />
Dame University where he coached the Fighting Irish. While at Notre Dame, from<br />
1964 to 1974, Parseghian was responsible for winning two national championships,<br />
in 1966 and 1973.<br />
He was named “Coach of the Year” twice in 1964, once in 1966 and in 1980. In<br />
1980 he was also named to the College Football Hall of Fame.<br />
While at Miami University, his coach was the great Woody Hayes, and an interesting<br />
fact to point to was that while coaching at Northwestern, Parseghian defeated<br />
the Fighting Irish on four separate occasions.<br />
Upon being hired in 1963 as the 22nd head football coach at Notre Dame, he inherited<br />
a team with a 2-7 record, and with young men who were down on their luck as<br />
a unit. The next year Parseghian brought Notre Dame a National Championship.<br />
In 1964, a player from Parseghian’s second year tenure named John Huarte won<br />
the Heisman Trophy. The Heisman is the most significant and important accolade<br />
a college football player can receive in his career.<br />
After coaching, Parseghian went into business. A family man, Parseghian and<br />
his wife, Kathleen, have three children. He has two foundations. He founded a<br />
charity, which serves to eradicate Niemann-Pick disease and also works for the<br />
foundation to cure Multiple Sclerosis.<br />
A couple of months back, Parseghian joined former Notre Dame Coaches Lou<br />
Holtz and Brian Kelly on the set of ESPN College game day. At 89 years of age,<br />
Parseghian is a testament to health and wellness and will always be revered as an<br />
iconic <strong>Armenian</strong>-American sports figure.<br />
Church Razed, to Be<br />
Replaced by Housing<br />
5<br />
BELMONT, Mass. (Boston Globe) — The oldest<br />
church in Belmont was demolished last<br />
week, according to town officials and the developer<br />
who plans to<br />
By Evan Allen<br />
build three duplex<br />
houses where it<br />
stood.<br />
“It’s over. It’s<br />
pretty sad,” said Selectman Andy Rojas. “I’m<br />
sure [the developer] will build some nice houses<br />
on there, but it’s really not the same.”<br />
The former First Congregational Church on<br />
Trapelo Road in Waverly Square was sold last<br />
month for $1.3 million to developer Edward<br />
Hovsepian, who had obtained a demolition permit<br />
from the town in December.<br />
Hovsepian said he looked at the possibility of<br />
saving the church, and building housing units<br />
inside and behind the structure. But ultimately,<br />
he said, the structure needed too much work,<br />
and the lack of parking was too big an issue.<br />
“It doesn’t make sense to keep it, and that<br />
was just the bottom line,” he said. “I don’t feel<br />
good about tearing down a church. No one feels<br />
good about that.”<br />
Hovsepian said he is having plans drawn up<br />
for the duplexes, which he said will be sold as<br />
condominiums, and that he hopes to break<br />
ground on the project in the next five or six<br />
weeks.<br />
Demolition started at around 8 a.m., said<br />
Hovsepian, and the church was completely<br />
demolished by about noon. Stained glass windows,<br />
pews, some furnishings, and light fixtures<br />
were sent to a salvage company, he said.<br />
Residents were saddened by the loss of the<br />
church, which had stood at the heart of the<br />
square since 1870.<br />
“I am more emotional than I even thought I<br />
would be today,” said Lisa Oteri, who grew up<br />
in Belmont and serves as a Town Meeting member.<br />
“I think it’s just a great loss.”<br />
With the demolition of the church, she said,<br />
Belmont has lost a piece of its quaint New<br />
England charm.<br />
“We’re just losing these wonderful reminders<br />
of architecture past,” she said. “We’re losing<br />
small houses, we’re being crowded out by oversized<br />
townhouses on small lots. I just feel like<br />
part of it could have been saved as a remembrance<br />
of a time past for Waverly Square. But I<br />
guess not.”<br />
Rojas said that the town did make an effort<br />
to save the church, and that one individual<br />
approached Hovsepian about the prospect of<br />
buying it, but was turned down.<br />
Hovsepian declined to comment on who<br />
approached him or what they offered, other<br />
than to say it was a town official.<br />
Rojas said he was surprised that no members<br />
of the community picketed or otherwise acted<br />
to save the church. “The community, in a way,<br />
didn’t respond forcefully enough.”<br />
The sale and demolition of the church has<br />
prompted drafting of bylaws by Belmont officials<br />
to provide some protection for historical<br />
buildings.<br />
Michael Smith, chairman of the town’s<br />
Historic District Commission, said the commission<br />
will put a demolition-delay bylaw<br />
before Town Meeting in April that would temporarily<br />
halt the demolition of historic buildings<br />
to allow a search for other options. The<br />
Planning Board is also drafting a bylaw,<br />
according to the chairman, that would create<br />
incentives for developers to preserve historic<br />
buildings.<br />
Rojas said that while the town did not step up<br />
to buy the church, the developer could have<br />
been more flexible and waited to see whether<br />
the bylaw proposed by the Planning Board<br />
passed at Town Meeting.<br />
Oteri said that perhaps everyone in town<br />
bore some responsibility by not doing more to<br />
protect the church.<br />
“Maybe we should have helped each other<br />
create a public outcry earlier in the process,”<br />
she said, “but I don’t know where the opportunity<br />
was lost.”
6 S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3<br />
T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
By Betty Apigian Kessel<br />
DETROIT — The object of this column is to<br />
inform readers that although he is a prolific<br />
writer, scholar, lecturer, teacher and an exceptional<br />
minister of the Lord in his duties as a<br />
clergyman in the <strong>Armenian</strong> Congregational<br />
Church, Rev. Dr. Vahan Tootikian deserves to<br />
be revealed as to the sum total of how he<br />
became the venerated man of the cloth we<br />
have come to love and respect.<br />
One day the postman arrived at my house<br />
with a huge box containing 30 books Rev. Dr.<br />
Tootikian had written over the many years of<br />
his ministry and just after the first of this year<br />
one more book arrived titled Keeping The<br />
Balance and who could share the benefits of<br />
keeping balance better than the author? That<br />
makes 35 books. He is revered by every element<br />
of the Metro Detroit <strong>Armenian</strong> and<br />
American community and is known worldwide<br />
as a true humanitarian. He delivers the word<br />
of God because he lives it.<br />
He writes: “There ought to be a fair balance<br />
between one’s faith and one’s good works, for<br />
without faith a person’s good works are futile<br />
and without good works one’s faith is dead.<br />
I am privileged to have read the tributes<br />
and accolades paid to him in a testimonial<br />
banquet book in celebration of Rev. Dr.<br />
Tootikian’s 40th anniversary of his pastoral<br />
and public service as well as another such<br />
event honoring him on September 25, 2005<br />
marking his retirement.<br />
His story begins in Ekiz-Olouk near his<br />
beloved Kessab, Syria, one of four sons born<br />
to Hagop and Keghanoush Tootikian. Rev. Dr.<br />
Tootikian says of them, “They were simple,<br />
good people whose dignity showed us how life<br />
should be lived through example of integrity,<br />
love and faith.”<br />
A graduate of the Near East School of<br />
Theology, the Rev. Tootikian did his graduate<br />
work at Hartford, Harvard and Newton<br />
COMMUNITY NEWS<br />
Keeping the Balance by Rev. Dr. Vahan Tootikian and More<br />
WARWICK, R.I. — Irene H. (Melkonian)<br />
Zartarian, 98, died on January 7.<br />
She was the wife of the late George H.<br />
Zartarian.<br />
She was the daughter of the late George and<br />
Mary (Hagopian) Melkonian. She was the mother<br />
of three sons, David and his wife Janet of<br />
Narragansett, Alan and his wife Marilyn of<br />
Warwick, and Robert of Branford, Conn., and<br />
the grandmother of Lori and Brian Zartarian,<br />
Alison and Adrien Hebert, and great-grandmother<br />
of Julian<br />
Cepeda. She was<br />
predeceased by<br />
her siblings Albert<br />
Melkonian, Harold<br />
Melkonian, and<br />
Florence Hedison.<br />
She was born in<br />
Rehoboth, Mass.,<br />
in 1914. When<br />
she was very<br />
young, her family<br />
Irene (Melkonian)<br />
Zartarian<br />
OBITUARY<br />
Yeretzgin Varteni (Mikirditsian)<br />
Barsamian<br />
BELMONT, Mass. — Yeretzgin Varteni<br />
(Mikirditsian) Barsamian died on February 1.<br />
She was the wife of Rev. Arsen Barsamian.<br />
In addition to her husband, she leaves her<br />
children, Raffi Barsamian and his wife Lilit of<br />
California, Steven Barsamian and his wife<br />
Dorian of Virginia and Lucy MacMasters and<br />
her husband George of Watertown; grandchildren<br />
Lucine and Harry Andrew Barsamian and<br />
brother Mikirdits Mikirditsian of Beirut.<br />
Another brother, Artin Mikirditsian, predeceased<br />
her.<br />
Services were at St. James <strong>Armenian</strong> Church,<br />
465 Mt. Auburn St., Watertown, on Wednesday,<br />
February 6.<br />
Interment was in Ridgelawn Cemetery,<br />
Watertown.<br />
Expressions of sympathy may be made in her<br />
memory to St. James <strong>Armenian</strong> Church or to a<br />
charity of one’s choice.<br />
Arrangements were by the Giragosian<br />
Funeral Home.<br />
moved to<br />
Providence before<br />
they settled in the<br />
Shawomet section<br />
of Warwick, where she grew up on the family<br />
farm.<br />
In 1931, she graduated from Warwick High<br />
School and worked as a switchboard operator<br />
at Warwick City Hall before her marriage in<br />
1942. She and her husband lived in Warwick<br />
throughout their marriage, eventually settling<br />
in the Lakewood section where they raised<br />
their three sons.<br />
After her husband’s untimely death in 1965,<br />
Irene was devoted to honoring his memory, and<br />
did so through charitable donations. She estab-<br />
Yeretzgin Varteni (Mikirditsian) Barsamian<br />
Irene H. (Melkonian) Zartarian<br />
lished a student scholarship in his name which<br />
is given annually by the <strong>Armenian</strong> Student’s<br />
Association, as well as a donation to St. Vartan<br />
Cathedral in New York City in his honor.<br />
As a widow, her devotion and life’s work concentrated<br />
on raising her three teenage sons.<br />
Though she dedicated many hours as a volunteer<br />
worker at The Ocean State Center for<br />
Independent Living in Warwick, as well as the<br />
Rhode Island Hospital Gift Shop, her primary<br />
life work was centered on caring for her family<br />
and ensuring that her sons were successful in<br />
their life endeavors.<br />
She enjoyed traveling, especially her visit to<br />
Yerevan, Armenia, reading, knitting, hook-rugging<br />
and playing cards and Scrabble with her<br />
grandchildren, relatives and friends. She played<br />
pinochle for nearly seven decades with her dear<br />
friends, the “card group.”<br />
She was a life-long member of Sts. Sahag &<br />
Mesrob <strong>Armenian</strong> Apostolic Church of<br />
Providence and a sister in the Daughters of<br />
Vartan organization. In 1998, the Ladies Aid of<br />
the church honored her as “Mother of the Year.”<br />
She was proud of her <strong>Armenian</strong> heritage. Her<br />
love of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Church was a guiding force<br />
in her life and she was happiest when attending<br />
Divine Liturgies on Sunday mornings.<br />
She donated a digital music system to the<br />
church in honor of her late husband.<br />
The wake was on Friday January 11 at<br />
Nardolillo Funeral Home & Crematory,<br />
Cranston. Funeral services were held from Sts.<br />
Sahag & Mesrob <strong>Armenian</strong> Apostolic Church at<br />
on Saturday, January 12, followed by interment<br />
at North Burial Ground Cemetery, Providence.<br />
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to<br />
Sts. Sahag & Mesrob <strong>Armenian</strong> Apostolic<br />
Church, 70 Jefferson St. Providence, RI 02908.<br />
Theological seminaries earning two master’s<br />
and a doctorate.<br />
He was happily married for over 25 years to<br />
the now late Juliette (Nazarian) Tootikian and<br />
together had three beautiful daughters. In<br />
1991, on June 22, a date suggested by his<br />
mother because it also was his birthday, Rev.<br />
Dr. Tootikian married Californian Rosette<br />
Pambakian who as his life partner totally<br />
immersed herself to be at his side in everything<br />
affiliated in his ministry.<br />
Rosette Tootikian possesses an endearing,<br />
warm personality. She is an accomplished<br />
woman in her own right. She gave up a successful<br />
28-year career with Pan Am Airlines<br />
beginning in ticket sales at a very young age<br />
to become the Yeretzgin of the pastor of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Congregational Church in<br />
Southfield, offering support to her husband’s<br />
life and ministry.<br />
During her airline career, she traveled<br />
extensively, first class, around the world<br />
enjoying the lifestyle and culture of many different<br />
people. It was excellent preparation for<br />
her future life in Detroit.<br />
She admitted to her then future husband<br />
that although she helped her mother in the<br />
kitchen cooking, she never actually considered<br />
herself well versed in that area. He asked,<br />
“Are you willing to learn?” She now can honestly<br />
say “Yes” to that question having<br />
become a helpmate to her church’s ladies<br />
guild when preparing food for banquets and<br />
family nights. She is involved!<br />
I observed his popularity when I recently<br />
attended a Kessab picnic in Cambridge,<br />
Ontario. I noticed a throng happily surrounding<br />
someone with hugs and handshakes.<br />
Upon closer observation I discovered it was<br />
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my good friend Rev. Dr. Vahan Tootikian and<br />
the people loved their fellow Kessabtzi and<br />
were unabashedly showing their respect.<br />
Rev. Dr. Tootkian is now the Minister<br />
Emeritus of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Congregational<br />
Church of Greater Detroit after service of 30<br />
years. He and Yeretzgin (Pampeesh) Rosette<br />
travel across America, Canada, and other<br />
countries in his duties as the executive director<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Evangelical World<br />
Council.<br />
Along with his ecclesiastical involvement,<br />
Dr. Tootikian has been a lecturer at Lawrence<br />
Technological University and the University of<br />
Michigan. He was elected moderator of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Evangelical Union of North<br />
America four times. He also served as secretary<br />
and president of the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Evangelical World Council.<br />
The letters of congratulation and thanks for<br />
his service to God and community are from<br />
United States Presidents, Senators,<br />
Governors, other noted luminaries and people<br />
who have had the honor of his friendship. He<br />
maintains a remarkable relationship with his<br />
fellow Detroit Der Hayrs, brothers in the service<br />
of the Lord believing all are closely connected<br />
to the Mother <strong>Armenian</strong> Church.<br />
Without question through his faith and<br />
humility he has garnered the admiration of all<br />
who have come to know the Rev. Dr. Vahan<br />
Tootikian. Detroit has been most fortunate to<br />
have him in our midst. Our best wishes are<br />
extended to him and the lovely Yeretzgin<br />
Rosette for many more years as valued community<br />
members.<br />
His book can be purchased by contacting:<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Heritage Committee, 3925 Yorba<br />
Linda Blvd.. Royal Oak, MI 48073-6455.<br />
Nardolillo Funeral Home<br />
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1111 Boston Neck Rd. Narragansett, RI 02882 (401) 789-6300<br />
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www.giragosianfuneralhome.com
TRIBUTE, from page 5<br />
Through sacrifice and commitment, they<br />
maintained their identity and were a voice for<br />
fellow immigrants who followed them here.<br />
I watched with pride as the two Ojens took<br />
each other’s hands and sang the Hayr Mer. It<br />
made me realize that among the truly precious<br />
commodities in life is the love we share for<br />
those who made our existence possible and the<br />
friendships of all those whom we treasure<br />
deeply.<br />
The pedestal Ojen Fantazian was put upon<br />
one year at the Statehouse could have very well<br />
have been the footstool in her kitchen.<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
My mother was the last of her kind to leave<br />
Haverhill. Ojen Fantazian was in a class by herself<br />
in Billerica inside a community that once<br />
boasted some 75 survivors in the mid-1960s.<br />
In her later days, she held court at an assisted<br />
living facility.<br />
“We took a horse and buggy and we were<br />
with the animals in the train,” she recalled.<br />
To illustrate the severity of her situation,<br />
Ojen told the story of an <strong>Armenian</strong> general who<br />
handed her mother a gun for protection on the<br />
road. She always remembered him as her hero.<br />
“It’s a wonder we escaped,” Ojen often said.<br />
“A lot of times, we didn’t have food. We would<br />
COMMUNITY NEWS<br />
Dr. Sona Haroutyunian to Present Series at Fresno State on<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide in Literature, Translation and Cinema<br />
FRESNO — Dr. Sona Haroutyunian, from the University of<br />
Venice, the 10th Henry K. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting<br />
Professor of <strong>Armenian</strong> Studies at California State University,<br />
Fresno, will hold three illustrated public lectures on the theme<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide, concentrating on the renowned<br />
Italian-<strong>Armenian</strong> novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative,<br />
Skylark Farm.<br />
The first lecture, to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday,<br />
February 27, will focus on the literary genre as an instrument,<br />
which brings greater attention to the historical phenomenon<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide. To what extent are these narratives<br />
true to historical events? To what extent can an author use the<br />
devices of literary fiction while still remaining authentic in the<br />
telling of history? Does reading fiction about this particular<br />
historical event alter the way we think about the nature of historical<br />
memory? These are some of the questions that will be<br />
explored during the first lecture. This lecture will feature an<br />
accompanying slideshow of documents.<br />
In the second lecture, to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday,<br />
March 14, Haroutyunian will both explore and problematize<br />
the power of translation related to the Genocide as an instrument<br />
of cultural, historical and linguistic interaction. For<br />
example, why has this particular book been chosen for translation<br />
into 18 languages? What difference does reading<br />
Genocide literature in translation make? Is there something<br />
about the Genocide as an event that calls into crisis the very<br />
notion of eventfulness that resists or eludes translation? And<br />
finally, in what ways have these translations contributed to the<br />
awareness of the Genocide in their given countries?<br />
Haroutyunian will also explore the different impact of languages<br />
on intepretation by presenting exclusive interviews<br />
with some of the translators. During the lecture the metaphorical<br />
relationship between memory and translation will also be<br />
examined.<br />
The third lecture, to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday,<br />
April 10, will focus on the theme of “The <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide<br />
in Cinema” and will deal with the Italian directors the Taviani<br />
brothers and their film “Skylark Farm,” a co-production by<br />
Italy, Spain, Belgium, France and the European production<br />
company Eurimages.<br />
The aim of the three public lectures will be to analyze the<br />
different effects that each medium (literature-translation-cinema)<br />
may have on the experience of its readers/audience —<br />
what that medium is trying to cultivate, the limitations of each<br />
and how all of them in different ways bring greater attention<br />
to the historical phenomenon of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide.<br />
Haroutyunian is a graduate of Yerevan State University,<br />
where she received her master’s in pedagogy, philology and literary<br />
translation in 1996, and later her PhD in philology. She<br />
received her second PhD in linguistics at the University of<br />
Venice, where she has been a professor of <strong>Armenian</strong> language<br />
and literature since 2001.<br />
Along with teaching, Haroutyunian has also directed her<br />
skills towards working as the cultural advisor to the ambassador<br />
of Armenia in Italy, and the Italian and <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Website coordinator and translator for the <strong>Armenian</strong> Embassy<br />
in Italy.<br />
Recently, Haroutyunian completed mapping translations<br />
from the <strong>Armenian</strong> language into Italian, a project she has<br />
worked on with the United Nations Educational, Scientific<br />
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO.)<br />
Each of the lectures is free and open to the public and will<br />
Genocide Survivor Ojen Fantazian: A Tribute<br />
Dr. Sona Haroutyunian<br />
suffer.”<br />
After having her head shaved to ensure she<br />
would pass a lice inspection, Fantazian and her<br />
family boarded a vessel departing for Greece,<br />
crossing the Black Sea and eventually landing<br />
on Ellis Island in 1920.<br />
She recalled mothers throwing their children<br />
into the river, believing that such a burial was a<br />
more desirable fate than falling into the hands<br />
of the Turks. Her own mother once admitted<br />
she had considered doing the same.<br />
“We would have been murdered or taken as<br />
slaves by the Turks,” she recounted. “I never<br />
knew my father who had previously come to<br />
take place in the University Business Center, A. Peters<br />
Auditorium, on the Fresno State campus.<br />
For more information on the lecture, contact the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Studies Program.<br />
America when I was a baby. He never made it<br />
back to Armenia.”<br />
When the family arrived in the US, they lived<br />
with an uncle in Leominster.<br />
Her mother remarried a fellow <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
refugee and they moved to Lawrence, then<br />
Worcester, where her stepfather bought a convenience<br />
store. She worked there as a child.<br />
She spent most of her adult life in Arlington<br />
where she and her husband raised two children,<br />
James and Nancy. She also had two grandchildren,<br />
James Asbedian and Susan Ciaffi, and six<br />
great-grandchildren.<br />
For 10 years, she helped teach English to foreign<br />
children in the Arlington schools and once<br />
presided over the Parent Teacher Organization<br />
(PTO). She was a lover of classical music, especially<br />
opera, and often attended the<br />
Metropolitan Opera Society presentations in<br />
Boston.<br />
She supported a number of <strong>Armenian</strong> charities<br />
throughout her life, donating what little<br />
money she could spare. For years, she sent the<br />
Prelacy checks for orphans, always with an<br />
encouraging note. Her generosity was straight<br />
from the heart.<br />
“My age had nothing to do with it,” she often<br />
told others. “So long as I feel healthy and willing,<br />
I want to serve my heritage.”<br />
Among her other survivors is a brother,<br />
David Davidian.<br />
Entertainment Fridays<br />
and Saturdays<br />
7
8 S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
By Arto Khrimian<br />
NEW YORK — On Sunday, January 27, at the<br />
Pashalian Hall of St. Illuminator’s Cathedral,<br />
the New York chapter of Hamazkayin<br />
Educational and Cultural Society organized the<br />
screening of the documentary film “Enemy of<br />
the People: <strong>Armenian</strong>s Look Back at the Stalin<br />
Terror,” directed and produced by Zareh<br />
Tjeknavorian.<br />
Dr. Ara Caprielian, chairman of Hamazkayin<br />
of New York, began the program with welcoming<br />
remarks, during which he expressed his<br />
gratitude to Rev. Mesrob Lakissian for making<br />
the Pashalian Hall available gratis for such cultural<br />
events. Then, he introduced Zareh<br />
Tjeknavorian to the audience.<br />
Tjeknavorian was born in Fargo, ND, but<br />
grew up in a cosmopolitan international environment<br />
due to his father, composer and conductor<br />
Loris Tjeknavorian’s tours in various<br />
countries. The younger Tjeknavorian lived in<br />
San Francisco, Iran, London, Germany, Paris,<br />
New York City and Armenia. He graduated<br />
from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York<br />
University in 1992, with a bachelor’s degree in<br />
film and television production.<br />
“Enemy of the People,” narrated by Eric<br />
Bogosian, is Tjeknavorian’s most widely-known<br />
documentary film, which depicts Stalinist<br />
oppression in Armenia. In fact, National<br />
Geographic Magazine recommended it as one<br />
of three must-see films about Armenia, along<br />
with “The Color of Pomegranates” by Sergei<br />
Paradjanov and “Ararat” by Atom Egoyan.<br />
Tjeknavorian interlaces black and white<br />
archival film with his original color footage of<br />
interviews and scenes in this documentary. The<br />
film opens with a scene of Joseph Stalin’s funeral<br />
procession. Thousands of mourners wait in<br />
line to pay their last respects. Then, a direct<br />
quote from Stalin eerily encapsulates the historic<br />
perspective of his terror: “The death of<br />
one man is a tragedy. The death of millions,<br />
only statistics.”<br />
During Stalin’s reign between the early 1930s<br />
and his death in 1953, a terror campaign swept<br />
the USSR; nearly twenty-five million people were<br />
executed or exiled to “gulags,” forced-labor<br />
camps in remote areas of the Soviet Union.<br />
Armenia represented the epitome of Stalin’s terror<br />
in the entire USSR, where nearly each citizen<br />
was turned into either an informant or a victim.<br />
The victims were accused of being “enemies of<br />
the people.” Stalin demanded conformity supposedly<br />
for the good of the state, rationalizing<br />
that since he represented the state, to be against<br />
him meant to be against the Revolution. Thus,<br />
Stalin coerced the entire society into becoming<br />
an accomplice in his crime.<br />
In the interviews, the survivors of the gulags<br />
and the children of the prisoners who perished<br />
talk about their tragic experiences. It is heart<br />
wrenching to listen to their stories. The truth is<br />
revealed that common working people along<br />
with innocent intellectuals were persecuted and<br />
exiled, many of whom disappeared without a<br />
trace. Against the archival footage depicting the<br />
torturous labor in the gulags, the film juxtaposes<br />
a new footage that shows the unearthing<br />
of human bones from an obscure mass grave in<br />
a newly-developed residential area in Armenia.<br />
Later, the documentary film shows one of<br />
Stalin’s “glorious” speeches where he promises<br />
to a fervently applauding crowd to protect the<br />
Soviet people: “[I will protect] the working<br />
class, the peasants, and the intelligentsia.”<br />
Those, particularly the intelligentsia, were the<br />
very same people whose lives were destroyed by<br />
his paranoid oppression.<br />
Although this is a documentary, with his artful<br />
filming and skillful editing, Tjeknavorian<br />
succeeds in adding subtle drama and suspense<br />
to his work. At the heart-wrenching finale of the<br />
film, the audience wishes that it were much<br />
longer than 58 minutes.<br />
During the question and answer segment of<br />
the program, Tjeknavorian explained that he<br />
had no choice but to edit some of his favorite<br />
parts out of film so that it could be shown on<br />
public television. He said, “Frankly, I was green<br />
when I made this film,” as this was his first full-<br />
New York<br />
M E T R O<br />
Hamazkayin of NY Screens Zareh Tjeknavorian’s Documentary, ‘Enemy of the People’<br />
Flamenco Dancers<br />
Perform at <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Society Center<br />
NEW YORK— The Arts Flamenco dancers<br />
will perform at the Mark Kyrkostas Remember<br />
Me With Music & Dance Concert, 7 p.m., March<br />
8, at the <strong>Armenian</strong> Society Center, 39-03 Little<br />
Neck Parkway.<br />
Ivy Adrian, the concert pianist, will perform<br />
Kyrkostas’ classic pieces accompanied by Ani<br />
Djirdjirian on vocals. Djirdjirian, is an Adelphi<br />
University music major and a graduate of the<br />
Holy Martyrs Day School.<br />
The Khanamirian Dance Group will also perform<br />
traditional <strong>Armenian</strong> dances.<br />
The event is presented by the Anthropology<br />
Museum of the People of New York and is open<br />
to the public. Parking is available. A reception<br />
with refreshments will follow the program.<br />
For tickets, contact the museum:<br />
http://www.anthropologymuseum.org/.<br />
length film, commissioned by Louise Simone of<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> General Benevolent Union<br />
(AGBU). “I would do it a little differently today,’’<br />
he continued.<br />
However, he is happy with the entirety of this<br />
work, which includes more than 200 interviews<br />
and about 100 hours of documentary footage.<br />
He went to the remotest corners of the Soviet<br />
Union to film the locations where <strong>Armenian</strong>s<br />
had been exiled. He also interviewed former<br />
NKVD (Soviet secret police) officials. His contacts<br />
helped him find surviving <strong>Armenian</strong> victims.<br />
Those interviews are of historic value now<br />
that most of the interviewees/witnesses have<br />
passed away. Among very many valuable interviews,<br />
he mentioned the interview with Elena<br />
Bonner (Lusik Alikhanyan), who was a human<br />
rights activist in the Soviet Union and the wife<br />
of the renowned physicist and dissident, Andrei<br />
Sakharov.<br />
Tjeknavorian added, “That interview was<br />
very interesting, but I could not include her in<br />
this film because it would not fit into the storyline.”<br />
Tjeknavorian also mentioned the attempts<br />
made by certain apologetics to whitewash the<br />
truth about Stalin’s terror (also known as the<br />
Great Purge) and to absolve him of his despicable<br />
crimes, but such efforts eventually turn out<br />
to be futile in the light of the truth and the verdict<br />
of historians.<br />
This statement gives us another glimmer of<br />
hope. Regardless of how emotionally deranged<br />
they were, tyrants such as Talaat, Hitler, and<br />
Stalin were avid students of history and they<br />
were cautious of promoting an admirable image<br />
of themselves during their reign. Now that history<br />
has identified them as the utmost villains<br />
of human kind, can we hope that future tyrants<br />
of the same kind will think twice before committing<br />
another purge or genocide?<br />
At the conclusion of the program, Dr. Ara<br />
Caprielian invited Fr. Mesrob Lakissian to the<br />
podium to make the closing remarks. Lakissian<br />
expressed his pleasure at seeing such a<br />
poignant film, congratulated Tjeknavorian on<br />
his accomplishment, and presented him with a<br />
miniature replica of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide<br />
Commemoration Monument erected in<br />
Antelias. He also praised Caprielian and the<br />
rest of the Hamazkayin board members for<br />
organizing this significant function.
NEW YORK — The Fund for <strong>Armenian</strong> Relief<br />
(FAR) announced recently a gift by benefactors<br />
Edward and Janet Mardigian and the Mardigian<br />
Family Foundation.<br />
The magnanimous gift — one of the largest<br />
ever contributed to FAR — will allow the<br />
humanitarian organization to launch a new initiative,<br />
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty,<br />
Developing Thriving Communities, aimed at<br />
relieving poverty and decreasing its effects on<br />
children and families in one of the key<br />
provinces in Armenia.<br />
A portion of the gift will also help support<br />
the FAR Children’s Center in Yerevan, increasing<br />
and extending the five-year commitment<br />
that the Mardigian family has already made to<br />
support the center.<br />
“We are extremely thankful,” said FAR<br />
Chairman Randy Sapah-Gulian, “that the<br />
Mardigian family gift will provide critical support<br />
for these most important initiatives of FAR<br />
for the next five years.”<br />
The board members and staff of FAR have<br />
been deeply touched by this expression of the<br />
Mardigians’ continuing confidence and good-<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
will.<br />
“I can hardly find words to express how<br />
blessed we feel to have such people in the fold<br />
of our Diocese,” said Archbishop Khajag<br />
Barsamian, Primate of the Eastern Diocese and<br />
President of FAR. “The dedication Edward and<br />
Janet have always shown to our heritage is a<br />
shining light to people throughout our community,<br />
and especially in Armenia.”<br />
Barsamian also reflected on the vision of the<br />
late, senior generation of the family, Edward<br />
and Helen Mardigian, who were longtime, heroic<br />
benefactors of the church in America and<br />
Armenia. “The late Edward and Helen<br />
Mardigian both shared a strong conviction<br />
about the importance of transmitting our heritage<br />
from generation to generation,” said the<br />
Primate. “Their effort was waged on many<br />
fronts, and I feel that the Mardigian family’s<br />
support of these FAR projects is of a piece with<br />
the enduring family legacy to improve and<br />
advance <strong>Armenian</strong> youth.”<br />
With the Mardigians’ generosity behind it,<br />
FAR’s new groundbreaking program aims to<br />
break the “cycles of poverty” presently handi-<br />
Check us out at<br />
www.mirrorspectator.com<br />
New York<br />
M E T R O<br />
Mardigian Gift will Help One of Armenia’s Poorest Regions<br />
capping people in Armenia’s Tavush region,<br />
and set them on the road to greater self-sufficiency<br />
and dignity.<br />
Today, even more than 20 years after the collapse<br />
of the Soviet Union, Tavush still suffers<br />
from poverty, malnutrition, unemployment and<br />
poor infrastructure. These factors weaken families,<br />
individuals, and ultimately the community<br />
Edward Mardigian reviews the blueprints<br />
of the new Octet School.<br />
as a whole. Instead of being able to focus on<br />
their potential to improve their lives, many<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s in the region find themselves in a<br />
day-to-day struggle to survive.<br />
Through Breaking the Cycle of Poverty, FAR<br />
will combat this situation by focusing on goals<br />
like stabilizing families, developing sustainable<br />
industry and training and educating a qualified,<br />
competent work force in Tavush.<br />
Its many successful programs already extant<br />
in Armenia give FAR the right foundation of<br />
experience and hard-won knowledge to take on<br />
such a transformative task.<br />
The experienced counselors at the FAR<br />
Children’s Center in Yerevan are ready to<br />
address the needs of vulnerable children, while<br />
also working with parents to<br />
help strengthen the family<br />
unit. The Children’s Center<br />
will also provide training to<br />
Tavush’s native child protection<br />
agencies, so that they can<br />
better assist their population.<br />
FAR will encourage residents<br />
to forge stronger connections<br />
with the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Church, by partnering with<br />
local pastors and giving children<br />
the chance to benefit<br />
from FAR’s excellent summer<br />
camp programs.<br />
Doctors trained through<br />
FAR’s Continuing Medical<br />
Education Program will also<br />
be partners in this new initiative,<br />
working among local families<br />
to provide higher quality<br />
healthcare and nutrition.<br />
To improve the fields of agriculture, construction,<br />
trades and traditional crafts that are<br />
vital to Tavush, FAR will draw on its connections<br />
to broader regional markets, while partnering<br />
with leaders in the private sector, professional<br />
associations and government to support<br />
local entrepreneurs and business development.<br />
FAR will also work with government agencies<br />
at all levels to support much-needed rehabilitation<br />
of the province’s infrastructure and provide<br />
better access to natural gas, clean water<br />
and irrigation.<br />
With an eye to long-term prosperity, FAR will<br />
make its diverse scholarship and vocational<br />
training programs more readily available to children<br />
and students in Tavush, giving them<br />
opportunities to obtain higher education and<br />
gain the requisite skills for stable, dignified<br />
employment as adults.<br />
Established in 1955, the Helen and Edward<br />
Mardigian Foundation has provided significant<br />
support to various religious, cultural, and educational<br />
philanthropies, including a major contributions<br />
towards the building of the St. John<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Church of Greater Detroit and the<br />
restoration of many historic <strong>Armenian</strong> churches<br />
and monasteries worldwide. It has also provided<br />
generous support to the <strong>Armenian</strong> General<br />
Benevolent Union (AGBU) and the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Assembly of America.<br />
The foundation has funded three museums,<br />
including the Edward and Helen Mardigian<br />
Museum in the <strong>Armenian</strong> Quarter of Jerusalem,<br />
and the museum in the <strong>Armenian</strong> monastery in<br />
Geghard, Armenia.<br />
The family also created the Helen and<br />
Edward Mardigian Institute at the Eastern<br />
Diocese, a highly successful training program<br />
for educators and Sunday School teachers.<br />
“My parents taught us to want to give back;<br />
they communicated that this country had been<br />
good to them, and so they wanted to give back<br />
to the community,” said Edward Mardigian.<br />
“My father focused on the <strong>Armenian</strong> community;<br />
however, he wanted to serve everyone,<br />
which is why my father started the foundation.”<br />
The Helen and Edward Mardigian<br />
Foundation has been supporting many causes<br />
in Armenia, most notably helping the country’s<br />
younger generation. The FAR Children’s Center<br />
continues to be a pioneer in the field of child<br />
protection in Armenia, thanks to the ongoing<br />
support of the FAR Edward and Helen<br />
Mardigian Child Protection Foundation, established<br />
by the family in 2007.<br />
In 2013 the entire Mardigian family —<br />
Edward, Janet, Matthew and Grant — were in<br />
Gumri for the start of construction on a new<br />
school of music to serve the city, which still<br />
labors under the shattering effects of the 1988<br />
earthquake. The new music school became possible<br />
thanks to the Mardigian Foundation.<br />
“I knew the elder Mardigians, the late<br />
Edward and Helen, since I was a child,” recalled<br />
Sapah-Gulian, “and they have always focused on<br />
the children. The recent gifts to FAR by their<br />
children — Edward and Janet and the family —<br />
are in keeping with that vision to support children’s<br />
programs.”<br />
“Ultimately,” he added, “we will help foster a<br />
strong and confident next generation, to lead<br />
From left, Grant Mardigian, Matthew Mardigian and Archbishop<br />
Khajag Barsamian<br />
Armenia into a brighter future.”<br />
As one of the pre-eminent humanitarian and<br />
development organizations working in Armenia<br />
today, FAR has a long record of leadership in<br />
providing high quality programs in healthcare,<br />
education, child protection and economic development<br />
to the Republic of Armenia. The result<br />
has changed the lives of thousands of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s. In more than two decades of operations,<br />
FAR has implemented more than $290<br />
million worth of relief and development programs<br />
in Armenia and Karabagh — programs<br />
which not only meet immediate needs, but also<br />
contribute to lasting positive change to<br />
Armenia and its citizens.<br />
To learn more about FAR’s Breaking the<br />
Cycle of Poverty, Developing Thriving<br />
Communities program, or to make a contribution<br />
to FAR’s ongoing efforts, visit<br />
www.farusa.org.<br />
9
10 S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3<br />
T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong> Museum<br />
Displays <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Book Treasures<br />
By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach<br />
Special to the <strong>Mirror</strong>-<strong>Spectator</strong><br />
MAINZ, Germany — The relationship of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s to their language is very special,<br />
actually unique. To my knowledge, Armenia is<br />
the only country that offers the foreign visitor<br />
a monument composed of giant letters of the<br />
alphabet, standing as stone sculptures in a vast<br />
field outside Yerevan. And Mesrob Mashtots<br />
(360-440), the genius who invented the alphabet<br />
as a perfect phonetic system in the year 405<br />
AD, is not only honored as a great intellectual<br />
but is revered as a canonized saint. His biographer<br />
Koriwn compared his arrival in<br />
Echmiadzin with his alphabet to the appearance<br />
of Moses with the holy tablets from Mount<br />
Sinai. Mesrop and his students are honored in<br />
the church calendar, especially with the celebration<br />
of the Festival of the Holy Translator,<br />
again a unique event.<br />
The reason why <strong>Armenian</strong>s reserve such a<br />
privileged place for their language lies in the<br />
historical fact that it, along with the church,<br />
was what saved the <strong>Armenian</strong> people and their<br />
culture from extinction over centuries. Though<br />
their nation was occupied by foreign powers,<br />
The poster for the exhibit<br />
and the people were expelled from their native<br />
lands, they managed to maintain their identity<br />
as a people thanks to the continuity of their language<br />
culture. And a crucial factor in preserving<br />
this tradition was the <strong>Armenian</strong>s’ adoption<br />
of the technology of book printing invented by<br />
the great German scientist Johannes<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong>. In fact, the <strong>Armenian</strong>s were among<br />
the first Christians of the Orient to print books.<br />
That was in 1512, and last year, UNESCO commemorated<br />
the 500th anniversary by designating<br />
Yerevan officially as the world book capital.<br />
In the context of these anniversary celebrations,<br />
exhibits of <strong>Armenian</strong> book printing were<br />
organized in Yerevan, Venice, Amsterdam and<br />
Washington, DC. A very special additional<br />
exhibit opened in December in Mainz, Germany,<br />
and will run through the middle of March. The<br />
site of the exhibit is the <strong>Gutenberg</strong> Museum,<br />
dedicated to the life and work of Johannes<br />
see EXHIBIT, page 12<br />
Arts & Living<br />
Raffi Joe Wartanian performs.<br />
Eclectic Mix of<br />
Music Debuts on<br />
Raffi Wartanian’s<br />
‘Pushkin Street’<br />
YEREVAN — Raffi Joe Wartanian, a multi-platform <strong>Armenian</strong>-American artist and<br />
Fulbright research follow, has launched “Pushkin Street,” his debut album of 11<br />
original “gypsy zest” songs under artist name “Raffi Joe.” The album — a fusion of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>, rock, Greek, gypsy, funk, Latin, folk and theater music described as<br />
“Salvador Dali meets Frank Zappa meets Dick Dales meets the Beatles — is available<br />
on iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify, CD Baby, Amazon, Soundcloud, Google Play and<br />
other major online<br />
distributors.<br />
Wartanian was<br />
born in Baltimore to<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> immigrants<br />
from Beirut,<br />
Lebanon, where he<br />
spent most summers<br />
of his upbringing<br />
absorbing the eclectic<br />
local Lebanese<br />
culture, and spending<br />
time with his<br />
grandparents, survivors<br />
of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide,<br />
along with extended<br />
family. He attended<br />
the Hamasdegh<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> School in<br />
Washington DC<br />
Raffi Joe Wartanian performs at a school in Talin.<br />
every Sunday where he learned to sing and dance before taking up the piano at 8<br />
and the guitar at 12.<br />
Wartanian, a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University, has studied guitar with<br />
Brian Kooken, and with Paul Bollenback at the Peabody Conservatory. In Armenia<br />
he has studied flamenco guitar with Hakob Jaghatspanyan and oud with Miran<br />
Demirjian, both instructors at the Komitas Conservatory of Music in Yerevan. His<br />
poetry has been published and he has been commissioned to write original music<br />
and lyrics for Eileen Khatchadourian, whose album, “Midan,” was awarded Best<br />
Rock Album at the 2009 <strong>Armenian</strong> Music Awards. Wartanian has also worked as an<br />
actor with Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, Theater Hopkins in<br />
Baltimore, and with the Hamasdegh Theater Group aboard the 10th annual<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Heritage Cruise.<br />
Studying the development of civil society through volunteerism and the arts in<br />
Armenia as Fulbright research fellow, Wartanian has continued performing, studying<br />
and writing music. He has performed 11 times since arriving in Armenia, including<br />
performances for school children in villages, and around Yerevan for audiences<br />
that have included the US Ambassador to Armenia, and is currently forming a band<br />
for a forthcoming CD release party and future performances.<br />
Design Selected for<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide<br />
Memorial in Pasadena<br />
PASADENA, Calif. (Los Angeles Times) —<br />
The winning design for a public memorial commemorating<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide was<br />
announced Tuesday.<br />
The design by Catherine Menard, a student of<br />
Art Center College of Design, was submitted to<br />
the Pasadena <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide Memorial<br />
Committee for consideration. The memorial<br />
sketch was praised as “an emotionally compelling<br />
design” that would serve to “inspire a<br />
similar emotional connection in those who<br />
encounter it, for generations to come,” according<br />
to a statement by the committee.<br />
The central feature of Menard’s design — a<br />
carved-stone basin of water straddled by a tripod<br />
arrangement of three columns leaning into<br />
one another — is a single drop of water that falls<br />
from the highest point every three seconds,<br />
each “teardrop” representing one life lost. A<br />
rendering of the winning design was not immediately<br />
available.<br />
Over the course of one year, 1.5 million<br />
“tears” will fall into the pool, representing the<br />
estimated number of people who died during<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide from 1915 to 1918,<br />
which occurred under the Ottoman Empire, or<br />
what is now the modern republic of Turkey.<br />
The project is slated for Memorial Park in<br />
Pasadena and is expected to be completed by<br />
April 24, 2015, the 100th anniversary of the<br />
Genocide.<br />
Menard, a 26-year-old of French-Cajun heritage<br />
who is majoring in environmental design<br />
at the college, immersed herself in the history<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> people to create the design.<br />
In a statement, Menard said the research process<br />
was engrossing and inspirational.<br />
“At first I felt unworthy — who am I to respond<br />
to such loss?” she said. “But art lends itself to the<br />
deepest, darkest parts of human experience. It<br />
can create sympathy, empathy, understanding. I<br />
wanted to pair this horror with something uplifting<br />
and beautiful, to create a way to remember. I<br />
developed three different ideas and settled on the<br />
one that I felt most terrified and most moved by,”<br />
Menard said.<br />
Tigran Hamasyan, YoYo<br />
Ma among Vilcek Winners<br />
NEW YORK (New York Times) — Yo-Yo Ma,<br />
the popular and successful cellist who has<br />
already received several major cash awards, has<br />
won another: the $100,000 Vilcek Prize, given<br />
by the Vilcek Foundation. The foundation,<br />
which this year is recognizing achievements in<br />
contemporary music, also gave three $35,000<br />
awards to three other musicians: Tigran<br />
Hamasyan, an <strong>Armenian</strong>-born vocalist and<br />
pianist; the British-born songwriter James<br />
Abrahart, known as JHart and Samuel<br />
Bazawule, a Ghanaian producer and composer<br />
known as Blitz the Ambassador.<br />
The foundation was set up to recognize contributions<br />
by immigrants in the United States<br />
to science and the arts by Jan T. Vilcek, a scientist<br />
at New York University who made his fortune<br />
in research that led to the drug Remicade,<br />
an important anti-inflammatory. Ma has also<br />
received the Dan David Prize ($1 million), the<br />
Léonie Sonning Music Prize ($80,000), the<br />
Glenn Gould Prize ($34,000) and the Polar<br />
Music Prize ($166,000).<br />
Pianist Tigran Hamasyan
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3<br />
ARTS & LIVING<br />
T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
For Entertainment Promoter Ed Atamian,<br />
Risk Makes the Job More Fun<br />
By Richard Duckett<br />
WORCESTER (Worcester Telegram and<br />
Gazette) — Ed Atamian, 61, of Shrewsbury, is<br />
the head of Elite Entertainment, Inc. He and his<br />
wife, Susan, have two sons, Ross and Kirk. For<br />
the past 35 years, he has brought some of the<br />
most famous names in music to area venues.<br />
Among them, he rattles off, are, “Diana Ross,<br />
B.B. King, Tom Jones, Aretha Franklin, Bill<br />
Cosby, Kenny Rogers, The Moody Blues, Vince<br />
Gill, Martina McBride, Crosby and Nash, Trace<br />
Adkins, Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, Patti<br />
LaBelle, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jennifer Hudson,<br />
Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, Tony Bennett,<br />
Doobie Brothers, Avicii …”<br />
WT&G: What attracted you to this type of<br />
business?<br />
EA: “I always loved music and live concerts,<br />
and was always very curious as to how concerts<br />
were produced and what takes place behind the<br />
scenes. So one day I started to make calls to<br />
booking agents in New York City and told them<br />
I was a promoter from Massachusetts and finally<br />
I found one talent agent who did listen to my<br />
story, Phil Citron, and we are still working<br />
together to this day along with my son Ross,<br />
who is Phil’s assistant, working in New York for<br />
the past seven years. My first major show was at<br />
the Centrum with Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughn<br />
and Buddy Rich.”<br />
WT&G: What is the degree of risk involved<br />
in promoting a show? Do you have to pay upfront<br />
to the performer, the venue, others, then<br />
hope that tickets sell?<br />
EA: “The risk on every show is enormous.<br />
Performers require a 50 percent deposit 30 days<br />
before the show, some venues require deposits,<br />
some media outlets, i.e. radio, TV, newspapers,<br />
require payment up front. Everyone wants to<br />
get paid regardless of ticket sales.”<br />
WT&G: What would most people not know<br />
about what you do?<br />
EA: “As the promoter for the show, I buy the<br />
show from the booking agents and then proceed<br />
to sell tickets. I take the risk on every<br />
show and hopefully get the reward. I set ticket<br />
prices, time of the show, advertise the show,<br />
arrange for the setting up day of show, hiring<br />
the catering, booking hotels and limousines, et<br />
cetera. I work directly with the theater and the<br />
artist tour manager on a daily basis.”<br />
WT&G: How has the business changed over<br />
the years?<br />
EA: “It really hasn’t changed that much —<br />
give people a good show at a fair price! There is<br />
nothing like a live concert.”<br />
WT&G: What is the most frustrating aspect<br />
of your job?<br />
EA: “Dealing with inclement Northeast winter<br />
weather and sometimes not selling enough<br />
tickets to a show.”<br />
WT&G: You’ve worked with some very high<br />
profile stars such as Diana Ross and Bill Cosby.<br />
Are big names also high maintenance? Any horror<br />
stories/feel good stories?<br />
EA: “The big names I have worked with have<br />
not been high maintenance at all. Most are very<br />
gracious, and I do whatever is necessary to<br />
Ed Atamian, president of Elite Entertainment, Inc., in his office<br />
make them happy when they play my shows.<br />
One interesting story, about five years ago I<br />
was presenting the Kenny Rogers Christmas<br />
Show in Lowell. There was a threat of bad<br />
weather and Kenny was traveling from<br />
Philadelphia (where he performed the night<br />
before). I received a call from his tour manager<br />
about 4 a.m. saying the buses were on the side<br />
of the road outside of Pennsylvania and couldn’t<br />
move because of the ice. At noontime, after<br />
waiting and hoping, I had to postpone the<br />
show. This was on a Sunday and the only open<br />
day Kenny had in his schedule was the following<br />
Wednesday. However, the arena in Lowell<br />
was booked with a hockey game.<br />
After speaking with the GM of the arena I<br />
called the president of the hockey team to see<br />
if he could move the hockey games from<br />
Wednesday night to Tuesday night. He agreed<br />
and the Kenny Rogers show went on<br />
Wednesday night.<br />
Feel good: Last year I did a show in<br />
Jacksonville with Diana Ross. About three<br />
weeks before the show I received a letter from<br />
a fan telling me that her mother grew up loving<br />
Diana Ross and The Supremes, she had never<br />
seen her in person, and would not be able to<br />
attend the concert due to medical issues.<br />
However, knowing Diana Ross was in her hometown<br />
on that night would make her feel good. I<br />
called the daughter and told her if there is any<br />
way her mother is able to make the show that I<br />
would love for them to be my guest and there<br />
would be four tickets left at the box office. I left<br />
her my number to call me if she came. Half an<br />
hour before the show she called me, we met and<br />
they were able to see Diana Ross in concert.<br />
WT&G: What do you enjoy most about your<br />
job?<br />
EA: “Working with so many wonderful people.”<br />
WT&G: What advice would you give to someone<br />
considering becoming a promoter?<br />
EA: “Walk before you run, it is a very risky<br />
business and one bad show can put you out of<br />
business as fast as you got into business.<br />
However, if you try and have the passion go for<br />
it and don’t look back!”<br />
ALMA Presents<br />
New Series, ‘In<br />
Conversation’<br />
11<br />
WATERTOWN — On Wednesday,<br />
February 20, at 7:30 p.m., the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Library and Museum of America (ALMA) will<br />
hold the first in a new series, “In<br />
Conversation,” beginning with poet and<br />
singer/songwriter Arto Vaun. The conversation<br />
will be moderated by Prof. Taline<br />
Voskeritchian. The program will focus on the<br />
question of literature’s relevance in diasporan<br />
culture and space.<br />
This ongoing series seeks to be a forum<br />
where intellectuals and artists, along with<br />
the audience, can engage in an open conversation.<br />
Born in Cambridge, Mass., Vaun has attended<br />
Harvard and is currently finishing a PhD<br />
in English literature from Glasgow University.<br />
A poem from his first collection, Capillarity,<br />
was included in The Forward Book of Poetry<br />
(2010). Other poems have been included in<br />
the anthologies New Poetries V and Ma ter<br />
10, as well as in various journals and magazines.<br />
He has been interviewed about his<br />
work on the BBC. Vaun was the co-founder of<br />
Aspora Literary Journal in Los Angeles, a coeditor<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Weekly, and is the<br />
current poetry editor of Glimpse Journal. His<br />
next book of poems, Isinglass, is forthcoming<br />
from Carcanet Press. He has recorded three<br />
CDs and performed with artists such as Rufus<br />
Wainwright and Ben Kweller. His new CD,<br />
“The Cynthia Sessions,” is being released in<br />
February.<br />
Voskeritchian teaches writing and literature<br />
at Boston University. Her work has<br />
appeared locally, nationally and internationally<br />
in American Literary Review, Ahégan<br />
(Beirut), London Review of Books, The<br />
Nation, Agni Review, Book Forum, Words<br />
Without Borders, The Daily<br />
Star/International Herald Tribune (Beirut),<br />
Journal of Palestine Studies,<br />
MERIP/Middle East Report, Alik (Tehran),<br />
Warwick Review (UK), the radio program<br />
“On Being” and the on-line journals<br />
Jadaliyya and HowlRound.<br />
The event is free. A donation of $5 is suggested.<br />
Wine and coffee will be served.<br />
Vaun will be available to sign copies of his<br />
most recent book and CD.<br />
ALMA is located at 65 Main St.<br />
‘Vartanantz and the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Nation’<br />
<strong>Exhibit</strong>, Lecture at ALMA<br />
WATERTOWN — On Sunday, February 17<br />
at 2 p.m., the <strong>Armenian</strong> Library and Museum<br />
of America (ALMA) will feature a new exhibit,<br />
titled “History, Art, Icon: Vartanantz and<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong> Nation.”<br />
Although Napoleon Bonaparte once noted<br />
that “History is written by the victors,” the<br />
experience of losing can be just as central to<br />
a people’s identity. The crushing defeat of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s at the battle of Vartanantz by an<br />
invading Persian army in 451 CE has become<br />
the most important battle in <strong>Armenian</strong> history,<br />
defining a people and a culture for future<br />
generations.<br />
The exhibit will showcase Vartanantz as a<br />
symbol of <strong>Armenian</strong> determination, martyrdom<br />
and heroism through paintings, publications<br />
and other media. A lecture given by<br />
Gary Lind-Sinanian, titled “When Life Gives<br />
Lemons: the <strong>Armenian</strong> Victory of<br />
Vartanantz,” will explore the process of transforming<br />
historic defeats into symbolic victories<br />
at Avarayr, Masada, the Alamo, Bunker<br />
Hill and comparable events.<br />
Lind-Sinanian is an Armenophile who has<br />
served as ALMA’s chief curator since 1987<br />
and has created many of exhibitions and presentations<br />
examining and celebrating the<br />
complex history of the <strong>Armenian</strong> people. His<br />
lecture will start at 3 p.m.<br />
The event is free and open to the public.<br />
Refreshments will be served following the<br />
presentation.
12<br />
EXHIBIT, from page 10<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong>, who was the first to develop the technology<br />
of movable print in ca. 1439, a technology<br />
which was to unleash a revolution in learning<br />
worldwide. The exhibit, “Schriftkunst und<br />
Bilderzauber,” (The Art of Calligraphy and the<br />
Charm of Pictures), is modeled on an earlier<br />
exhibit in the Artistic Forum in Halle and is organized<br />
in cooperation with the Berlin State<br />
Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin -- Preussischer<br />
Kulturbesitz) and the MESROP Center for<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Studies at the Martin Luther<br />
University in Halle-Wittenberg. The precious<br />
books and other artifacts for the exhibit came on<br />
loan from the Berlin State Library, which houses<br />
the most important collection of early <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
printed works in all of Europe as well as the<br />
largest number of <strong>Armenian</strong> manuscripts in<br />
Germany. Other institutions that made books<br />
available are the Library of the German Oriental<br />
Society, the National Library of the Republic of<br />
Armenia and the Mashtots-Matenadaran<br />
Manuscript Institute in Yerevan. The Bavarian<br />
State Library in Munich and the Halle<br />
Saalesparkasse Foundation also contributed articles<br />
for the show. It was the financial contribution<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> government that made the<br />
exhibit possible.<br />
And what a wonderful exhibit! With a generous<br />
display of artifacts, especially printed books and<br />
beautifully illustrated manuscripts, and explanatory<br />
panels, the organizers have succeeded, with<br />
great economy of means, in giving an overview<br />
not only of the beauty and brilliance of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> art of book printing but also of its significance<br />
as a contribution to world civilization.<br />
The scientific value of Mesrop’s alphabet is<br />
explained as well as the political conditions under<br />
which the <strong>Armenian</strong> people struggled; thus the<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
visitor is able to grasp the reason why the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> script, the language and its literary tradition<br />
(religious as well as profane) gained such<br />
importance that a veritable “book cult” developed.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s cherish their books like the<br />
Bible. Books were not objects but “fellow citizens”<br />
and “soldiers,” we read in the accompanying<br />
pamphlet. This also helps explain the extraordinary<br />
love and care dedicated to producing the<br />
magnificent books on display — from the very first<br />
book in <strong>Armenian</strong> printed in movable type, the<br />
1512 Venice edition of Ovorbatagirk’ (Friday<br />
Book) of Hakob Megapart, to the translations of<br />
the Bible, whose illustrations maintain a continuity<br />
with the art of hand illustrated manuscripts<br />
from the earliest times. The value of other<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> translations is evident in the books<br />
that transmitted the works of the ancient Greeks,<br />
many of which survived only through these early<br />
versions in Old <strong>Armenian</strong>.<br />
The vanguard role of the church in promoting<br />
printing is impressive. From the 16th century,<br />
Echmiadzin led the effort to preserve the national<br />
language and religion through book printing,<br />
and the clergy continued to be active in the publishing<br />
field. In the 17th and 18th centuries,<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> works were printed in European centers,<br />
Rome, Amsterdam and Venice. From the late<br />
17th century Venice developed as a special center<br />
of <strong>Armenian</strong> book printing, through Italian and<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> printers as well as through the<br />
Mekhitarist Order of Priests on the Venetian<br />
island of San Lazzaro, who established their own<br />
printing press in 1789. Other centers of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> printing documented in the exhibit are<br />
Constantinople, Saint Petersburg, Persia, Madras,<br />
ARTS & LIVING<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong> Displays <strong>Armenian</strong> Book Treasures<br />
Chookasian Ensemble<br />
Announces Berkeley<br />
Performance<br />
BERKELEY, Calif. — The Freight & Salvage<br />
Coffee House Concert Hall, will host the<br />
Chookasian <strong>Armenian</strong> Concert Ensemble, in an<br />
evening celebrating traditional <strong>Armenian</strong> folk<br />
music and dance.<br />
The performance by the Chookasian<br />
Ensemble, Armenia’s National Gold Medal<br />
Award recipients, will be hosted in partnership<br />
with <strong>Armenian</strong> Cultural Visionaries, a non-profit,<br />
California-based organization, promoting<br />
education and cultural preservation in all areas<br />
related to <strong>Armenian</strong>s.<br />
The concert will take place on Saturday,<br />
February 23, at 8:00 p.m., at the hall, located at<br />
2020 Addison St. This is the sixth performance<br />
by the ensemble at this venue.<br />
The ensemble, composed of conservatory<br />
graduate musicians from Armenia and the US<br />
is known for its performances encompassing<br />
the full spectrum of <strong>Armenian</strong> classical,<br />
troubadour, folk song and folk dance music.<br />
The Chookasian Ensemble weaves <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
stories and traditions into musical performances<br />
with the hope of connecting audiences<br />
with the music and the lore. Both the Eastern<br />
and historic Western <strong>Armenian</strong> musical forms<br />
are featured in the ensemble’s performances of<br />
music from the 16th to the 20th centuries.<br />
The Chookasian <strong>Armenian</strong> Concert<br />
Ensemble’s most recent live concert CD,<br />
“Passage to Armenia,” was chosen from all<br />
global submissions, as the first place universal<br />
winner, for the “Best Traditional <strong>Armenian</strong> Folk<br />
Album,” at the 2010 International <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
“Grammy” Awards Celebration, presented at<br />
the Nokia Theater, in Los Angeles.<br />
Under the direction of Fresno clarinetist,<br />
John Chookasian, the full roster of musicians<br />
includes: John Tarpinian, oud; Barbara<br />
Chookasian, principal vocalist; Vergine Alimian,<br />
kanun, surik, tarr and saz; Jirair Vaganian,<br />
d’hol; Sarkis Bukujian, violin; Hayk<br />
Nalbandyan, dumbeg and deff; Andranik<br />
Mouradian, keyboards and Norik Manoukian,<br />
duduk and zurna.<br />
For information and tickets, contact:<br />
info@freightandsalvage.org or<br />
www.freightandsalvage.org.<br />
Prof. Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan<br />
Calcutta and so forth.<br />
Why such an exhibit should be hosted in<br />
Mainz, Germany deserves special mention.<br />
Obviously, the fact that after all <strong>Gutenberg</strong> was<br />
the one who made such book printing on a mass<br />
scale possible is important. And certainly<br />
<strong>Gutenberg</strong> would have been delighted to see such<br />
a magnificent exhibit in the museum dedicated to<br />
his work. But there is more to it. Germany, the<br />
nation of “poets and thinkers,” is also the home<br />
of the greatest philologists of the modern era.<br />
Leibniz, Bopp, the Grimm brothers, Humboldt<br />
are just a few names associated with this illustrious<br />
school, names known outside Germany.<br />
Less well known but just as important in the<br />
history of philology are the German scholars who<br />
dedicated their efforts to the study of <strong>Armenian</strong>.<br />
The <strong>Gutenberg</strong> Museum exhibit includes books<br />
by Germans who wrote about the <strong>Armenian</strong>s and<br />
studied their language.<br />
Hans Schiltperger, for example, presented a<br />
report on the <strong>Armenian</strong>s in a book published in<br />
Augsburg in 1476. A Bavarian nobleman,<br />
Schiltperger was captured by Turks in the battle<br />
of Nikopolis (1396), then fell into the hands of the<br />
Mongols and was taken through Asia Minor,<br />
Syria, Egypt, Persia, Turkmenistan, and Armenia.<br />
After being freed in 1427, he wrote up his adventures<br />
in a travelogue, a copy of which is on display<br />
in Mainz. Then there was Bernhard von<br />
Breydenbach, a canon in Mainz who undertook a<br />
journey through the Holy Land together with<br />
Erhard Reuwich, a painter from Utrecht. His<br />
account of the pilgrimage, the Peregrinatio in<br />
Terram Sanctem, published in 1486 in Mainz,<br />
reported on the <strong>Armenian</strong> community he met in<br />
Jerusalem. It was the first illustrated travelogue,<br />
and was so popular it went through eight editions<br />
in various languages in the 15th century.<br />
Also exhibited under glass in Mainz is the<br />
Abdias hayeren id est Obadias Armenus primum<br />
in Germana specimen characterum<br />
Armenicorum, in celeberrima Accademia<br />
Lipsiens procuratorum. This book, issued in<br />
Leipzig in 1680 by Andreas Acoluth, is the first<br />
German edition of this work, and is quite extraordinary.<br />
There are seven pages of text, each divided<br />
into three columns, with the transliteration<br />
(according to West <strong>Armenian</strong>), the <strong>Armenian</strong> text<br />
in <strong>Armenian</strong> script and the Latin translation.<br />
There follows a section in which the etymological<br />
and theological aspects are researched. Acoluth’s<br />
thesis was that the <strong>Armenian</strong> language might be<br />
related to Egyptian, an idea which would be further<br />
investigated in the 19th century. Acoluth<br />
worked together with the <strong>Armenian</strong> priest<br />
Grigorients in Leipzig and had <strong>Armenian</strong> letters<br />
for printing produced at his own expense. His<br />
work is considered the beginning of <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
philology (Armenology) in Germany. On exhibit<br />
are also the Thesaurus Linguae armeniscae,<br />
published in 1711 by the Marburg Orientalist<br />
Johann Joachim Schroeder.<br />
The German scholar who laid the foundations<br />
for <strong>Armenian</strong> philology in the modern era<br />
was Heinrich Huebschmann (1848-1908). It was<br />
he who first established that <strong>Armenian</strong> was an<br />
independent language within the group of Indo-<br />
Germanic (or Indo-European) languages, whereas<br />
earlier it had been considered a dialect of<br />
Iranian. He compiled a grammar and a dictionary<br />
of Middle <strong>Armenian</strong>. Another important<br />
German Armenologist was Franz Nikolaus<br />
Finck (1867-1910), who issued the Magazine<br />
for <strong>Armenian</strong> Philology beginning in 1901,<br />
and who collaborated with <strong>Armenian</strong> translator<br />
Abgar Hovhannesean (1849-1904), who contributed<br />
to making <strong>Armenian</strong> literature known<br />
in Germany.<br />
Armenology (Hayagitut’iwn), the study of<br />
Armenia, its language, religion, history and culture,<br />
has a long and illustrious history in<br />
Germany, which is reflected in the Mainz exhibit.<br />
And Armenology is alive and well here. Its leading<br />
representative is Prof. Armenuhi Drost-<br />
Abgarjan, from MESROP, the Center for<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Studies at the Martin-Luther<br />
University Halle-Wittenberg, who was curator of<br />
the exhibit. Working with her to create this wonderful<br />
show are Meliné Pehlivanian, from the<br />
Berlin State Library, Prussian Cultural Heritage,<br />
Orient Department, and Dr. Annette Ludwig,<br />
director of the <strong>Gutenberg</strong> Museum. They also prepared<br />
the brochure for the exhibit, from which<br />
material for this article is drawn.<br />
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<strong>Mirror</strong>-<br />
T H E A R M E N I A N<br />
<strong>Spectator</strong><br />
Established 1932<br />
An ADL Publication<br />
EDITOR<br />
Alin K. Gregorian<br />
ASSISTANT EDITOR<br />
Gabriella Gage<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITOR<br />
Aram Arkun<br />
ART DIRECTOR<br />
Marc Mgrditchian<br />
SENIOR EDITORIAL COLUMNIST:<br />
Edmond Azadian<br />
CONTRIBUTORS:<br />
Florence Avakian, Elizabeth Aprahamian,<br />
Daphne Abeel, Dr. Haroutiune<br />
Arzoumanian, Taleen Babayan, Prof.<br />
Vahakn N. Dadrian, Diana Der<br />
Hovanessian, Philip Ketchian, Kevork<br />
Keushkerian, Sonia Kailian-Placido,<br />
Harut Sassounian, Mary Terzian, Hagop<br />
Vartivarian, Naomi Zeytoonian<br />
CORRESPONDENTS:<br />
Armenia - Hagop Avedikian<br />
Boston - Nancy Kalajian<br />
Philadelphia - Lisa Manookian<br />
Contributing Photographers:<br />
Jacob Demirdjian, Harry Koundakjian, Jirair<br />
Hovsepian<br />
The <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Mirror</strong>-<strong>Spectator</strong> is published<br />
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S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
COMMENTARY<br />
COMMENTARY<br />
The Rise of the Ottoman Specter<br />
By Edmond Y. Azadian<br />
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu portrays the Ottoman<br />
rule in idyllic terms pretending that subject nations lived in perfect<br />
harmony, with their human rights respected. Therefore, he has<br />
become a proponent of nostalgia regarding the olden Ottoman days.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s, along with other subject nations, were at the receiving<br />
end of that iron-and-blood rule, and know full well its significance<br />
and its impact on weaker nations which may be trapped once again<br />
under that bloody rule.<br />
For the West, Turkey is a trusted ally. For the Islamic world,<br />
Turkey is the standard-bearer of Islamic ideals and “defender” of<br />
Palestinian rights. For Israel, it is the only strategic ally in the region<br />
to help it maintain its hegemony over the Middle East. But, for the<br />
current leaders of Turkey, all these external relations are useful factors<br />
or building blocks for the greater purpose of reviving Ottoman<br />
dreams.<br />
For all the nations which have suffered under the harsh Ottoman<br />
rule, the successful outcome of Turkey’s grand designs signifies only<br />
gloom and doom.<br />
But, unfortunately, Ankara has been making headways in its ambitions,<br />
fueled by its economic and military power.<br />
Since 1974, Turkey has been occupying 38 percent of the island<br />
of Cyprus, and the West, which kowtows to Ankara, views the conflict<br />
as a problem between two equal partners, not necessarily an<br />
aggression against the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation.<br />
We should be reminded that the island of Cyprus was ceded to<br />
Britain in 1878 at the Berlin Conference, where Article 16 of the San<br />
Stefano Conference was watered down to give a free hand to the<br />
Ottoman Sultan to continue his murderous policy against the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s.<br />
In short, it was a political transaction paid for by <strong>Armenian</strong> blood.<br />
Since its occupation of the island, Ankara has been populating the<br />
northern sector with peasants from Turkey’s interiors, to change the<br />
ethnic balance of the country. Turkey does not even recognize the<br />
legitimate Cypriot government, member of the European Union, irrespective<br />
of its plea to join that union.<br />
When Iraq was occupied, Turkey rushed to revive its claim from<br />
the Ottoman-era legacy over the oil rich northern part of the country,<br />
using the Turkmen minority as its fifth columnists. The majority<br />
Kurds preempted that action and established an autonomous rule<br />
and the US prevented Turkey from dismembering Iraq in its favor,<br />
although allowed, encouraged and participated in Turkish raids<br />
against the Kurds.<br />
If Turkey is not there as a controlling power, it is not because there<br />
is much sympathy towards ethnic rights of the Kurds, but because<br />
Israel has set up shop in that region, to follow and influence the flow<br />
of events.<br />
Another dimension of Turkey’s Ottomanist claim is of course in<br />
the Caucasus, where Turkey and Azerbaijan are featured as one<br />
nation with two governments. Therefore, it was no surprise that<br />
recently President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan claimed the entire territory<br />
of Armenia as historic Azeri land.<br />
Although Central Asian Turkic nations remain out of Ankara’s<br />
grip, its Ottomanist dreams have had more resonance in the Balkans.<br />
During the Bolshevik revolutionary wars, Enver Pasha tried to<br />
unite the Central Asian nations and become their leader (caliphate).<br />
Kosovo’s independence was a gift to the Islamic world by the West<br />
to counterbalance its assaults in the Middle East, disclaiming that<br />
LETTERS<br />
the US and European Union are not against Islam.<br />
Today there is no political arrangement in the Balkans without<br />
Turkey’s participation and consent, as the former colonial ruler of<br />
the region.<br />
More dangerous is Turkey’s foothold in Bulgaria, which had suffered<br />
under Ottoman rule for 500 years. Many uprisings were<br />
crushed with blood, but during the Balkan War of 1912-1913, a<br />
coalition of Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian forces, eventually chased<br />
the Ottoman rulers from the Balkans. Our General Antranik was a<br />
participant in the liberation movement in Bulgaria, where he was<br />
awarded the title of general legitimately. Otherwise, he would have<br />
gone down in history as a mere guerilla leader.<br />
Despite the fact that the Bulgarians had endured the same fate as<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong>s under the Turkish rule, Bulgaria’s government failed<br />
to pass a resolution recognizing the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide, because of<br />
the opposition of the Turkish faction in the parliament.<br />
Out of a population of seven million, one million are Turks and<br />
they have 6 percent representation in the 240-seat parliament.<br />
The plight of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria has not always been<br />
as comfortable as it is today. In the 1980s, the communist leader<br />
Todor Zhivkov began a campaign of cultural assimilation, forcing the<br />
Turks to close their mosques and ethnic schools and adopt Slavic<br />
names. As a consequence of that campaign, 300,000 ethnic Turks<br />
relocated to Turkey.<br />
Until recently, the leader of the Turkish minority was Ahmed<br />
Dogan, a relatively moderate political figure who was forced out of<br />
politics by more extremists, aligned with Turkish Premier Recep<br />
Tayyip Erdogan.<br />
There was a dramatic incident recently in the news, which was dismissed<br />
as a simple skirmish between panelists on the TV screen. But<br />
in reality, it had deeper implications and far-reaching political ramifications.<br />
Indeed, a young Bulgarian Turk pulled a gun on Mr. Dogan, who<br />
was giving a speech at the podium. He was forced out and the incident<br />
ended without bloodshed, because the young man was using a<br />
gas pistol, which looks like a gun but cannot shoot bullets. As a consequence<br />
of this assault, Mr. Dogan resigned from the leadership of<br />
his party, the “Movement for Rights and Freedoms,” which had<br />
empowered the Turkish minority and helped win seats in the parliament.<br />
The gun-wielding young man, Oktay Yenimehmedov, was a former<br />
member of Dogan’s party who had left that party to join its radical<br />
offshoot, “Freedom and Dignity” party, founded by a former<br />
deputy of Dogan, Kassim Daly, who claims to be a follower of<br />
Erdogan’s pan-Turkish policy.<br />
Incidentally, the founding of Daly’s party was officially congratulated<br />
by Erdogan himself.<br />
Therefore, we find out that the TV incident was a power play by<br />
Turkish minority groups in Bulgaria, radicalizing their political activities<br />
in the country.<br />
The Turks have to push their political agenda wherever they can.<br />
That is understandable. But what is unbelievable is that the assailant<br />
was not punished, nor reprimanded. On the contrary, Bulgaria’s<br />
President Rosen Plevneliev considered the incident as a contribution<br />
to Bulgaria’s democratization process.<br />
Since the Turks are becoming more assertive in Bulgaria (especially<br />
after the country joined the European Union), we can imagine<br />
the plight of small <strong>Armenian</strong> community in the country and the<br />
prospects of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide bill in the parliament.<br />
As the specter of Ottomanism rises in the Balkans, we should not be<br />
surprised one day if Turkey lays claim to a chunk of Bulgaria’s territory,<br />
much like what happened in Cyprus, as part of its Ottoman legacy.<br />
Eastern Armenia Misinterpreted by Reader<br />
To the Editor:<br />
Mel Menasian’s letters about the Eastern<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s seem to be based on few facts, and<br />
these few he has misinterpreted. That the<br />
Syrian-<strong>Armenian</strong> refuges (many of whom are<br />
better-educated in Arabic than <strong>Armenian</strong>) prefer<br />
to learn Russian rather than <strong>Armenian</strong> is<br />
not a matter of lacking patriotism, but simply,<br />
that the <strong>Armenian</strong> language (and the alphabet)<br />
is much more difficult than the Russian<br />
alphabet. I know this from my multiple stays in<br />
Armenia, where I went to do research starting<br />
in 1971 on government grants.<br />
When I first arrived, neither my Russian nor<br />
my spoken Eastern <strong>Armenian</strong> was fluent.<br />
When I left after my first 13 months, my<br />
Russian was, alas, better than my <strong>Armenian</strong>.<br />
Russian was easier. It was also universal and<br />
was taught to every child in school. I also<br />
knew that many <strong>Armenian</strong>s in their high<br />
school and the universities preferred Russian<br />
to <strong>Armenian</strong> because Russian made it easier to<br />
get ahead. This is pragmatism, a quality of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>-ness. That is why the Syrian-<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> speaks Arabic better.<br />
I noticed, over the years, that western<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s are hostile to the eastern <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
language, as if it weren’t a real form of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>, but a corrupt mishmash. As a linguist,<br />
who started off with Grabar, I can assure<br />
you that both languages are equally conservative.<br />
Not just in pronunciation, but in morphology<br />
and syntax.<br />
Languages constantly change, and sometimes<br />
change is accelerated by a new ruling<br />
language. From 500 BC the Persians were<br />
dominant in Armenia, and by 500AD, almost<br />
half of the <strong>Armenian</strong> everyday vocabulary was<br />
Persian, just as the Eastern <strong>Armenian</strong> vocabulary<br />
was influenced by the dominant Russians.<br />
After 1000 AD, the Turks came and the sub-<br />
Caucasian Anatolian <strong>Armenian</strong> language<br />
changed because of that. That large Turkish<br />
substratum was forcefully removed by the<br />
Mkhitarist fathers in the 19th century, who<br />
brought a deeply depressed <strong>Armenian</strong> popula-<br />
13<br />
tion back to par and education returned.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> will never be a world language, and<br />
even linguists steer clear of it because the 38 letter<br />
alphabet makes for a big initial hurdle.<br />
Menasian’s uneducated and biased argument<br />
is common to western <strong>Armenian</strong>s who<br />
have lost their homeland, and have settled<br />
almost happily in the prosperous West, forsaking<br />
the last remnant of their homeland in the<br />
Caucasus. Much of the hostility to the eastern<br />
dialect comes from those abroad who know<br />
they rejected the last remnant of greater<br />
Armenia. It’s the ardent patriotism of a people<br />
in diaspora.<br />
That Menasian came back from Armenia<br />
thinking the <strong>Armenian</strong>s there did “not speak<br />
their own language” reflects poorly on the<br />
level of <strong>Armenian</strong> culture in the West, where<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s know so little about their Classical<br />
and Medieval culture, as well as Eastern<br />
Armenia.<br />
John A. C. Greppin, PhD<br />
Cleveland, Ohio
14 S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
A Week of Renewed Cultural Interest<br />
On the Shores of the Caribbean<br />
When a friend of mine suggested I join her on the 16th Annual <strong>Armenian</strong> Heritage Cruise,<br />
I wasn’t completely sold on the idea at first. After all, as someone who has been saturated<br />
in the <strong>Armenian</strong> community since birth, I didn’t find<br />
By Taleen Babayan<br />
it necessary to spend seven days on a boat listening<br />
to <strong>Armenian</strong> music, attending <strong>Armenian</strong>-themed lectures<br />
and participating in traditional <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
dance lessons as well as social and networking<br />
events. The itinerary basically described my daily life. What good would it do to commit<br />
myself to a boat for seven days with no land in sight?<br />
Thinking ahead to the shivering temperatures in January and how a trip to the Caribbean<br />
with a boat full of <strong>Armenian</strong>s would be much less stressful on my mom’s conscience than<br />
my prior trip to rural Nicaragua, I decided to give it a chance and heed the positive remarks<br />
of my predecessors. I figured at best I would have the opportunity to meet <strong>Armenian</strong>s from<br />
around the world and engage in conversation with new people. At worst — it would provide<br />
fodder for an <strong>Armenian</strong>-centered play I had been working on.<br />
During the first day on the cruise I met a flurry of people — hailing as far away as Lebanon<br />
and as close as one town over in my native New Jersey.<br />
While I knew only a handful of people attending, the common thread of a shared culture<br />
was the only introduction I needed when making a new acquaintance. In fact, my first<br />
evening on the cruise had me following the trail of baritone voices of a familiar yet ancient<br />
tune. By the time I reached the elevators and found the culprits — a group of young men<br />
from Toronto, Canada — I discovered they were singing the traditional hymn of Der<br />
Voghormia from our centuries-old Divine Liturgy — and it was then I realized that this trip<br />
would be unlike anything I had experienced before.<br />
The environment that quickly unraveled on the cruise was one reminiscent of the “older<br />
days” my mom and my friend’s parents would talk about while growing up in <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Diasporan communities around the globe. There was a refreshing openness and sense of<br />
camaraderie among <strong>Armenian</strong>s I had never witnessed.<br />
During many late afternoons, after our departure from the day’s island, I would settle<br />
myself at a table on the pool deck with a notebook as I welcomed people to join me — those<br />
I knew and those whom I hadn’t met before. All were welcome as conversations were quickly<br />
sparked about the church parish we attended, how we were enjoying our time and my<br />
favorite — figuring out our six degrees of separation.<br />
On my way to the gym one particular afternoon, I was sidetracked by the “Der Voghormia”<br />
singers who invited me to a game of Trivial Pursuit. As we familiarized ourselves with one<br />
another in between turns, our conversation naturally shifted to more relevant topics at hand<br />
— our religion, our homeland and our respective <strong>Armenian</strong> communities.<br />
Following a couple hours of discussion and laughter, we had all lost track of time, the purple<br />
haze of sunset on the calm azure waters of the Caribbean Sea serving as the only signal<br />
for us to get ready for dinner. As I walked back to my room afterwards, I realized a deepseated<br />
concern that weighed on me heavily had been quelled in that moment. The potential<br />
erosion of our culture, both in the Diaspora and our homeland, has always worried me. But<br />
after being engrossed in conversation with this group of friends who exhibited maturity,<br />
intelligence and nationalism and who were learned of the <strong>Armenian</strong> culture — from the traditions<br />
of the sacred <strong>Armenian</strong> Badarak to the political situation in Armenia — I felt a<br />
renewed sense of hope.<br />
Feeling at ease with the state of my cultural heritage came in other unexpected ways as<br />
well. While preparing for dinner, my friend and I would put on the <strong>Armenian</strong> channel on the<br />
television in our room and become enamored with the videos shown, from modern pop musical<br />
performances taking place on stages in Armenia to <strong>Armenian</strong> youngsters in America from<br />
the 1970s performing plays in their traditional costumes and impeccable <strong>Armenian</strong> language<br />
skills.<br />
Another highlight for me was seeing how many close-knit <strong>Armenian</strong> families were present,<br />
not to mention generations of <strong>Armenian</strong>s, ranging from great-grandparents to newborns.<br />
Couples — some of whom I was told had met on a previous cruise — brought their children<br />
on the dance floor and exposed them to a culture that will ultimately define them for the<br />
rest of their lives.<br />
As we approached our last day of the cruise, it occurred to me that the past week spent<br />
on a boat with eight hundred <strong>Armenian</strong>s didn’t have anything to do with learning about my<br />
culture. It went beyond that. It allowed me to reconnect with my culture in a way I didn’t<br />
think was possible.<br />
Growing up, <strong>Armenian</strong> pride never lacked in my household: we spoke <strong>Armenian</strong> at home,<br />
attended <strong>Armenian</strong> school on Saturday mornings and we even traveled to Armenia so my<br />
brother and I could be baptized in Holy Echmiadzin. But finding myself among a myriad of<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s whom I had never met before, but with whom I danced the tamzara, shared<br />
laughs over a coffee and engaged in colorful discussions, was certainly a special and euphoric<br />
feeling. I had experienced fragments of this in my own community, but never during an<br />
event of this length and magnitude.<br />
It is through well-organized, meaningful and large-scale cultural undertakings like the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Heritage Cruise, organized through the efforts of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Cultural<br />
Association of America, that highlight the uniqueness of our culture and serves as a conduit<br />
as to why we continue to flourish as a people, while those more powerful now cease to exist.<br />
Weeks like these inject a level of cultural prowess into our lives that can only help lead us<br />
forward to usher in the next chapter of our history.<br />
My experience on the cruise culminated on the final evening when both headlining musicians<br />
for the week — Khoren Mouradian of Toronto, and Khatchig Jingirian of San Francisco,<br />
were unable to sing due to the straining of their vocal chords, a result of our “kef” night<br />
after night. The crowd; however, did not have a chance to display any disappointment<br />
because the young but talented Toronto-based musical group Pyunik seamlessly assumed<br />
the entertainment portion of the evening. As Razmik Tchakmakian picked up his drumsticks,<br />
Sevag Haroutunian laid his fingers on the keyboards and Sevag Titizian grabbed the<br />
microphone and steadied himself in the center of the stage, the baton was silently passed —<br />
a symbolic moment which to me, was the essence of the entire trip.<br />
During a time when I’ve been questioning my identity and the stronghold it has on my<br />
life, the time I spent on the cruise proved to me that there is an unbreakable fiber of patriotism<br />
that is rooted within each of us — and while it may become dormant at times, lost in<br />
the shuffle of our every day lives, it can easily be revived with one familiar pluck of the oud<br />
or a conversation with a new friend in our mother tongue.<br />
For seven nights we stood in a shared space where time stood still, and where the longing<br />
to be unified as a people — devoid of a tragic history, divisions within our Christian faith,<br />
our Diaspora or our homeland — was fulfilled. We were surrounded by our rich language,<br />
our triumphant folk songs and our own people and for a static amount of time as we charted<br />
unmarked waters together — we were one.<br />
COMMENTARY<br />
Armenia Reforms Disability Rules<br />
By Gayane Mirzoyan<br />
Armenia is about to introduce major changes<br />
to the way disabled benefits are assessed, so<br />
that people will be categorized according to<br />
their ability to work.<br />
Experts point to a shortage of workplaces<br />
with proper accessibility in Armenia, and warn<br />
that the new classification system might be just<br />
as open to corrupt practices as the current one.<br />
Until now, the health authorities have put disabled<br />
people in one of three categories, ranked<br />
by severity of impairment. Category one is the<br />
most serious, category three the least; and this<br />
determines the level of disability benefits that<br />
the state pays out to each.<br />
The employment register currently shows<br />
170,000 registered disabled people in Armenia,<br />
of whom 90,000 are considered to be able to<br />
work to some extent.<br />
The authorities plan to replace the current<br />
system with one based on models used in<br />
Lithuania and the Czech Republic. It will take<br />
two years to launch, during which time the<br />
method for assessing disability will be refined.<br />
Jemma Baghdasaryan, deputy minister for<br />
labor and welfare, explained that anyone<br />
classed as able to work would be provided with<br />
a job, and would then lose disability benefits.<br />
“People will be deemed to be disabled if they<br />
have lost a certain percentage of their ability<br />
to work,” she explained. “For children, the criteria<br />
applied will be ‘activeness’ and ‘engagement.’”<br />
Marianna Chalikyan, spokeswoman for the<br />
disabled rights group Unison, doubts that the<br />
conditions exist to make the change so quickly.<br />
“Under the new system, they will assess individuals’<br />
state of health and circumstances, and<br />
then assign them a level of employability. [Most<br />
workplaces] are totally unprepared for this,” she<br />
said. “If you look at the state of the country as<br />
a whole, it is not ready to provide work, so an<br />
employer who wants to take on a disabled person<br />
will have problems.”<br />
Anna Khachatryan, a lawyer with Unison,<br />
expressed concern at the way the criteria had<br />
been drawn up for the new classifications. She<br />
said concepts like “ability to move around” and<br />
The following letter was sent by the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Bar Association and addressed to<br />
President Serge Sargisian and Prime Minister<br />
Tigran Sargisian:<br />
On February 18, the Republic of Armenia<br />
will hold its fourth presidential election since<br />
its 1991 independence.<br />
Having Armenia’s best interests in mind<br />
and holding to a deep belief in certain universal<br />
and inalienable rights, among which is<br />
the people’s right to self-governance through<br />
a representative and legitimate political system,<br />
I appeal to you, Mr. President and Mr.<br />
Prime Minister, to deliver to the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
citizenry its constitutional right to free, fair<br />
and democratic elections.<br />
We call on you, Mr. President, to see to it<br />
that the tragic and abhorrent shooting incident<br />
involving presidential candidate Paruyr<br />
Hayrikyan is fully investigated, the culprits<br />
brought to justice and that no efforts be<br />
spared to secure the safety of all presidential<br />
candidates.<br />
We welcome President Sargisian’s repeated<br />
commitments before the <strong>Armenian</strong> people<br />
and the international community to hold the<br />
“best elections since 1991.” We concur with<br />
President Sargisian’s characterization that<br />
free, fair and democratic elections are vital<br />
for Armenia’s national security and its ability<br />
to prosper.<br />
Since the beginning of the presidential<br />
campaign period, we have observed —<br />
through press reports, videos and records of<br />
eyewitness accounts — apparent improper<br />
pressures exerted on members of the public<br />
and private sectors compelling them to fall in<br />
line, in the absence of free will and to join in<br />
“ability to work” were defined in very broad<br />
terms, so someone might be assessed as fit for<br />
work if even they had only limited mobility.<br />
The current system, where people come<br />
before a medical commission to be placed in<br />
one of the three categories, is widely accepted<br />
as being open to abuse.<br />
Last September, the government sacked the<br />
head of the Labor Ministry’s medical examinations<br />
agency after hearing the results of an<br />
investigation which found that 65,000 people<br />
paid bribes every year to be classified as disabled.<br />
Investigators found that the bribes<br />
ranged from 15,000 to 150,000 drams, or $37<br />
to $370.<br />
Karen Hovhannisian notes that the reverse is<br />
common, too — people who are undeniably disabled<br />
but find their status is downgraded or<br />
annulled altogether when they appear before a<br />
medical commission.<br />
Marat Atovmyan, a lawyer who heads the<br />
Anti-Corruption Centre in Yerevan, cited the<br />
high-profile case of Armenui Arakelyan, a disabled<br />
woman called before an army conscription<br />
commission in 2011 after her son asked to<br />
defer his military service on the grounds that<br />
he was a carer.<br />
At the hearing, three doctors downgraded<br />
Arakelyan’s disability category, and that of her<br />
husband as well, so that their son could no<br />
longer claim the right to a deferment. The Anti-<br />
Corruption Centre stepped in and helped her<br />
reclaim her original disability status.<br />
Atovmyan and others argue that the new<br />
system of categorization is liable to be just as<br />
arbitrary.<br />
“The structure needs to be made more transparent<br />
so as to reduce the risk of corruption,”<br />
he said. “Professional doctors often can’t tell<br />
from a diagnosis which category a patient<br />
should be assigned to. It’s natural that lawyers<br />
and judges find it hard to discern what is illegal,<br />
since there are no clear categories.”<br />
Under the new system, Hovhannisian predicts,<br />
“the number of appeals will rise.”<br />
(Gayane Mirzoyan is a freelance reporter<br />
and a media expert with the Journalists for<br />
the Future group in Armenia. This piece was<br />
originally written for the Institute for War and<br />
Peace Reporting.)<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Bar Association Asks President<br />
To Commit to ‘Free, Fair’ Elections<br />
artifices of support, if not to submit to candidate-specific<br />
vote-casting directives, in favor<br />
of the incumbent executive leadership.<br />
As has previously been widely reported and<br />
accepted in part, both by opposition and ruling<br />
adherents, these types of flaws have negatively<br />
marked every <strong>Armenian</strong> election since<br />
1991. While we appreciate the current administration’s<br />
commitments, made and<br />
announced before its people and the international<br />
community, to ensure that the campaign<br />
process will be even-handed and that<br />
the election results will be free from manipulation,<br />
the specter of past irregularities continues<br />
to resonate today in the current election<br />
climate and landscape.<br />
We respectfully request that you publicly<br />
and clearly instruct and hold accountable all<br />
officials and others responsible for organizing,<br />
supporting and conducting the upcoming<br />
presidential election in a fair, free and<br />
democratic manner with the requisite checks<br />
and balances. These instructions should<br />
unequivocally prohibit irregularities and illegal<br />
acts, and the appearances of them, which<br />
can only serve to bring discredit and illegitimacy<br />
to all of Armenia’s other laudable and<br />
positive achievements.<br />
We look forward to working with<br />
Armenia’s freely-elected president, as well as<br />
with all those in different places along<br />
Armenia’s political, professional and socioeconomic<br />
spectrums, in service to our One<br />
Nation and One People.<br />
Garo B. Ghazarian<br />
Chairman,<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Bar Association
YEREVAN — Armenia’s ruling coalition<br />
retained a parliamentary majority following the<br />
May 2012 elections amid allegations of abuse of<br />
administrative resources, and intimidation of<br />
voters, observers and journalists. Ill-treatment<br />
in police custody persists. The government has<br />
yet to offer conscientious objectors a genuine<br />
civilian alternative to military service and has<br />
failed to effectively investigate a troubling number<br />
of non-combat deaths in the military.<br />
Politically motivated defamation lawsuits no<br />
longer appear to be a problem, but media pluralism<br />
is lacking, and some journalists covering<br />
the May 6 parliamentary elections suffered violent<br />
attacks by onlookers, some of them members<br />
of Armenia’s ruling political party.<br />
Violence and discrimination based on sexual<br />
orientation are serious problems. Bureaucratic<br />
restrictions prevent people with terminal illnesses<br />
from accessing strong pain medications.<br />
The Organization for Security and Cooperation<br />
in Europe’s (OSCE) monitoring report assessed<br />
the May 6 parliamentary elections as competitive<br />
and largely peaceful, yet marred by an<br />
“unequal playing field” due to misuse of administrative<br />
resources, and party representatives<br />
and local authorities pressuring voters, interfering<br />
in voting and hindering the work of journalists.<br />
Several violent incidents occurred during the<br />
campaign period in Yerevan, including assaults<br />
on opposition party <strong>Armenian</strong> National<br />
Congress (ANC) candidate Babken Garoyan and<br />
three other ANC members on April 15, and on<br />
ANC candidate Karen Tovmasyan on April 17.<br />
In both cases, the ANC members were distributing<br />
campaign information. Police opened<br />
investigations into each case. Helsinki<br />
Association campaign monitor Arman Veziryan<br />
filed complaints alleging that Yerevan resident<br />
Tigran Manukyan punched him and hindered<br />
his work as an observer while Veziryan<br />
observed an opposition activist distributing<br />
election pamphlets on April 30.<br />
Instead of investigating, prosecutors pressured<br />
Veziryan to withdraw the complaint and<br />
in June charged him with beating Manukyan,<br />
although Manukyan never claimed to be a victim.<br />
Veziryan was awaiting trial at this writing.<br />
According to local human rights defenders,<br />
torture and ill-treatment in police custody persist.<br />
Authorities often refuse to investigate illtreatment<br />
allegations or coerce citizens into<br />
retracting complaints. The October report of<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R 15<br />
My Turn<br />
By Harut Sassounian<br />
Will the REAL John Kerry Please<br />
Stand Up!<br />
Some weeks ago, when Sen. John Kerry’s name was first<br />
mentioned as a possible successor to Secretary of State<br />
Hillary Clinton, I cautioned <strong>Armenian</strong>s not to get overly<br />
excited just because “a good friend” of the <strong>Armenian</strong> community<br />
could assume such an influential post.<br />
Unfortunately, it did not take long to discover that my<br />
words of caution were fully justified. Despite his 30-yearrecord<br />
of support for <strong>Armenian</strong> issues, Sen. Kerry proved<br />
last week, right before assuming his new position, that even<br />
such a close “friend” could reverse his long-held views, disappointing<br />
the <strong>Armenian</strong>-American community.<br />
Regrettably, Sen. Kerry turned out to be no different<br />
than President Obama, Vice President Biden and former<br />
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As US Senators and<br />
presidential candidates, they all made lavish promises in<br />
seeking the backing of <strong>Armenian</strong>-American voters, and<br />
completely ignored them after assuming office.<br />
While some may argue that <strong>Armenian</strong>s should only<br />
blame themselves for trusting dishonest politicians, I<br />
believe all voters have the right to expect elected officials<br />
to keep their promises. Otherwise, lying to the public<br />
the European Committee for the Prevention of<br />
Torture (CPT) on a follow-up visit in December<br />
2011 noted overcrowding, unhygienic conditions<br />
and inadequate medical care in two prison<br />
facilities. CPT also noted that it received no new<br />
cases of ill-treatment from these facilities in<br />
2012. The government has not effectively investigated<br />
a complaint from seven ANC activists<br />
that police beat them in detention in August<br />
2011.<br />
The activists’ lawyers also filed a complaints<br />
alleging police denied them access to their<br />
clients, refused their request for a medical<br />
examination for the activists and briefly<br />
detained the lawyers for seven hours. The<br />
activists testified about the abuse during trial,<br />
but a Yerevan court did not request an investigation.<br />
In July, the court sentenced four of the<br />
activists — Karapetyan, Tigran Arakelyan,<br />
Sargis Gevorgyan and David Kiramijyan — to<br />
two to six years of imprisonment for hooliganism<br />
and resisting authority.<br />
In November, the appeals court upheld their<br />
sentences. In August, police dropped charges<br />
against the other three for lack of evidence. In<br />
October, the European Court of Human Rights<br />
(ECtHR) ruled that Armenia had violated the<br />
prohibition against inhuman or degrading treatment<br />
in the case of opposition party member<br />
Grisha Virabyan when police repeatedly hit him<br />
in the testicles with metal objects after detaining<br />
him following demonstrations in 2004. The<br />
court denounced the authorities’ failure to<br />
effectively investigate.<br />
Local human rights groups reported 44 noncombat<br />
army deaths through November. On<br />
COMMENTARY<br />
becomes an acceptable practice with no prospect of replacing<br />
deceitful officials with honest ones.<br />
Sen. Kerry experienced an overnight transformation last<br />
week, when for the first time in his political career, he shied<br />
away from using the term “<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide.” In the<br />
past, Senator Kerry had strongly criticized presidents and<br />
secretaries of state for not acknowledging the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Genocide. Ironically, he now refuses to practice what he<br />
preached for so many years.<br />
Senator Kerry proved that he is not the man he used to<br />
be, when responding to written questions on <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
issues submitted by Senators Robert Menendez (Dem.-NJ)<br />
and Barbara Boxer (Dem.-CA), after his confirmation hearing<br />
in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<br />
When asked for his views on the <strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide,<br />
Senator Kerry shamefully repeated the euphemisms used<br />
by President Obama in his annual April 24 statements. The<br />
nominee for secretary of state, after using the term<br />
“<strong>Armenian</strong> Genocide” throughout his long Senate career,<br />
all of sudden shied away from that term and employed<br />
every other word in the English dictionary, except genocide.<br />
This is what he stated:<br />
“The US government clearly acknowledges and mourns<br />
as historical fact that 1.5 million <strong>Armenian</strong>s were massacred<br />
or marched to their deaths in the final days of the<br />
Ottoman Empire. These events resulted in one of the worst<br />
atrocities of the 20th century, and the United States recognizes<br />
that they remain a great source of pain for the people<br />
of Armenia and of <strong>Armenian</strong> descent as they do for all<br />
of us who share basic universal values. The President honors<br />
the victims every April 24th on Remembrance Day, so<br />
that we never forget this dark chapter in history.”<br />
In a follow-up question reminding him of his own sponsorship<br />
for legislation to acknowledge the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
February 29, conscript Tigran Varyan was killed<br />
by a gunshot wound. The government-mandated<br />
autopsy revealed that Varyan was subject to<br />
violence, but investigators classified his death<br />
as suicide. A report by local human rights<br />
groups noted the Defense Ministry’s failure to<br />
initiate investigations promptly, to account for<br />
signs of violence in cases of alleged suicides,<br />
and to disclose the circumstances of many<br />
deaths. A January ECtHR ruling found Armenia<br />
had violated the right to religious freedom of<br />
Genocide, Sen. Kerry ducked the issue by insisting that he<br />
would “represent the policies of the President and administration<br />
faithfully.”<br />
Sen. Kerry’s response to questions on the <strong>Armenian</strong>-<br />
Turkish Protocols were just as disappointing. He insisted<br />
that he would continue to support the failed efforts of<br />
Pres. Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, pressuring<br />
Armenia and Turkey to ratify the Protocols. Four years<br />
ago, in a private meeting, I explained to Sen. Kerry, then<br />
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,<br />
why the Armenia-Turkey Protocols were doomed to failure<br />
and were contrary to Armenia’s national interests.<br />
Back then, the senator seemed to find my arguments convincing.<br />
He has now reverted to supporting the Obama<br />
administration’s position on the Protocols which Turkey,<br />
under pressure from Azerbaijan, has fortunately refusing<br />
to ratify.<br />
In response to another written question, Sen. Kerry indicated<br />
that he might be willing to meet with the leadership<br />
of <strong>Armenian</strong>-American organizations, something Secretary<br />
Clinton and President Obama have refused to do in the last<br />
four years. Such a meeting would provide the opportunity<br />
to explain to Secretary Kerry why the Obama administration<br />
is wasting its time trying to push Turkey to ratify the<br />
protocols. Turkish leaders have made it clear that they<br />
would not finalize the protocols, unless <strong>Armenian</strong>s make<br />
territorial concessions to Azerbaijan on Artsakh.<br />
While <strong>Armenian</strong>-Americans may not be pleased with Sen.<br />
Kerry’s sudden change of heart on <strong>Armenian</strong> issues,<br />
regardless of the reasons, they have no choice but to meet<br />
and work with the Secretary of State who is in office today.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>s’ only wish is that periodically they will be able<br />
to interact with the real John Kerry whom they knew and<br />
loved for the past 30 years.<br />
Human Rights Watch World Report 2013<br />
The government has yet<br />
to offer conscientious<br />
objectors a genuine<br />
civilian alternative to<br />
military service and has<br />
failed to effectively<br />
investigate a troubling<br />
number of non-combat<br />
deaths in the military.<br />
The <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Mirror</strong>-<strong>Spectator</strong> welcomes articles, commentaries<br />
and community news from our readers. In order to assure the accurate<br />
and timely publication of articles submitted, please note the following<br />
policies:<br />
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encouraged.<br />
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Notice to Contributors<br />
two Jehovah’s Witnesses by imprisoning them<br />
for refusing to perform mandatory military service<br />
in 2003.<br />
According to Forum 18, an international religious<br />
freedom nongovernmental organization,<br />
32 conscientious objectors were in prison as of<br />
September 20 for refusing military and alternative<br />
service, believing the alternative service<br />
was not independent of the military.<br />
In 2012, courts sentenced to prison terms 16<br />
additional Jehovah’s Witnesses for refusal to<br />
serve. The sentences were not enforced. In<br />
2011, authorities proposed amendments to the<br />
alternative service law. However, the OSCE and<br />
the Council of Europe (CoE) criticized the<br />
amendments for not making alternative service<br />
truly independent of the military and for making<br />
it 12-18 months longer than military service.<br />
In its July review of Armenia, the United<br />
Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC)<br />
urged the government to ensure a real alternative<br />
to military service, and release those imprisoned<br />
for refusing to perform military service or<br />
the existing alternative to it.<br />
Politically motivated defamation lawsuits no<br />
longer appear to be a serious problem.<br />
However, a June 2012 Parliamentary Assembly<br />
of the Council of Europe (PACE) report on<br />
media freedom in Europe found <strong>Armenian</strong> journalists’<br />
capacity to report was “hampered by<br />
pressures of self-censorship” and expressed concern<br />
about television stations’ use of material<br />
from political advertisements in news coverage.<br />
At least two journalists suffered attacks while<br />
covering the May elections.<br />
a daytime telephone number.<br />
— Deadline for submission of all articles and advertising is noon on<br />
the Monday of the week of publication.<br />
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editors and art director. Photos will be returned only if a selfaddressed<br />
and stamped envelope is included.<br />
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event. For major special events, exceptions may be made<br />
only by special arrangement with the editors.<br />
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of the editors) will not be included in press releases.
16<br />
S A T U R D A Y, F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 1 3 T H E A R M E N I A N M I R R O R - S P E C TAT O R<br />
Report Shows Insufficient Progress<br />
In Armenia Media Freedom<br />
YEREVAN (New Europe) — A new report by<br />
the Investigative Journalists’ NGO says Armenia<br />
is making insufficient progress in preserving<br />
media freedom. The organization is a member of<br />
the Association of European Journalists.<br />
The study “Violence, intimidation and legal<br />
cases against journalists and the media in<br />
Armenia 2012” pays particular attention to incidents<br />
of violence against reporters in the country,<br />
as well as lawsuits against media on charges<br />
of slander and insult.<br />
The report, financially supported by the<br />
Organization for Security and Cooperation in<br />
Europe (OSCE) Office in Yerevan, is a compilation<br />
of media freedom violations in Armenia<br />
between January and October 2012 and legal<br />
analysis of two renowned experts, attorneys Ara<br />
Ghazaryan and Ashot Vareljyan.<br />
After carefully examining various aspects<br />
regarding the freedom of news outlets, including<br />
legislative regulation, news accessibility, physical<br />
violence and slander/insult court cases, the<br />
study concluded that “overall judicial process is<br />
developing in the right direction.”<br />
This means that defamation cases brought to<br />
the courts have decreased dramatically, as well<br />
as a significant drop in the amounts of compensatory<br />
damages awarded has become established<br />
judicial practice.<br />
However, the judicial practice of defamation<br />
and libel lawsuits was found to be “the only area<br />
where steady positive developments continue.”<br />
In contrast, when it comes to exposing incidents<br />
of violence committed against journalists,<br />
the report concluded that, “the situation hasn’t<br />
improved.” More precisely, police investigations<br />
of the cases reported in 2012 “have been more<br />
for ‘show’ than anything else and thus unproductive.”<br />
Liana Sayadyan, deputy editor of the NGO-run<br />
online newspaper Hetq where the report<br />
appeared, told New Europe that journalists in<br />
Armenia faced various problems, including lack<br />
of access to information, violence and inefficient<br />
police investigations. However, in her opinion,<br />
the biggest weakness of the current media freedom<br />
environment in Armenia was the financial<br />
dependence of media outlets on politics, government<br />
or other institutions.<br />
According to the press freedom index for 2013<br />
recently released by Reporters without Borders<br />
(RWB), Armenia ranks 74th, marking a progress<br />
of three positions ahead compared to last year.<br />
Nevertheless, RWB emphasized that the country,<br />
together with Moldova and Georgia, “still<br />
faces important challenges concerning media<br />
independence and the working environment of<br />
journalists.”<br />
NATO Guards Turkey from Syrian Fire<br />
By Stephen Fidler<br />
GAZIANTEP, Turkey (Wall Street Journal) —<br />
On a windswept plateau overlooking this fastgrowing<br />
city in the south of Turkey, just 30 miles<br />
from the Syrian border, an array of US missiledefense<br />
launchers points south toward Syria,<br />
where a civil war rages.<br />
The mobile missile-defense battery, which also<br />
includes a sophisticated radar that peers deep<br />
into Syria, started operations this week after<br />
being called in to protect Turkish cities against<br />
the possible threat of Syrian ballistic missile<br />
attacks.<br />
This is as close as North Atlantic Treaty<br />
Organization ground forces have come yet to getting<br />
directly involved in the Syrian conflict.<br />
Officials insist they have no plans to go further, or<br />
to use the batteries here to enforce a Syrian nofly<br />
zone.<br />
The Turkish government requested the missiledefense<br />
support in November from its 27 allies in<br />
NATO to help protect its population. No Syrian<br />
missiles have hit Turkey, but the launching of missiles<br />
inside Syria by the government of Bashar al-<br />
Assad heightened fears in Ankara, the Turkish<br />
capital, that the country was threatened.<br />
The US, Germany and the Netherlands, each of<br />
which has the most sophisticated version of the<br />
Patriot air-defense system, answered that call.<br />
After NATO agreed to the request in December,<br />
the three countries started shifting troops and<br />
equipment by air and sea into Turkey for an initial<br />
one-year deployment. Each contingent contains<br />
up to 400 men: Germany has alone shipped<br />
200 vehicles into Turkey, including the heavy<br />
trucks that haul the missile launchers, radars,<br />
generators and control centers.<br />
On Tuesday, command of the US unit was<br />
transferred to NATO, linking it to the Dutch and<br />
German Patriot missile batteries that also started<br />
operations in the last two weeks. Six missile batteries<br />
in all have been sent to the region — two<br />
from each country — each typically with six missile<br />
launchers.<br />
All are linked into a NATO command and control<br />
center in Ramstein, Germany, that takes in<br />
satellite feeds and other intelligence to give the<br />
missile-defense teams a fuller picture of events<br />
inside Syria.<br />
The US contingent is sited deep inside an enormous<br />
Turkish military base on the outskirts of<br />
Gaziantep. The US soldiers here, normally based<br />
in Fort Sill, OK., as part of the third battalion of<br />
the US second air defense artillery regiment,<br />
work in gray combat uniforms, their equipment<br />
mostly in desert camouflage that matches the<br />
rocky outcrops.<br />
Their missile launchers contain both older-technology<br />
PAC-2 missiles designed to explode near<br />
an incoming missile and destroy it with shrapnel,<br />
and the newer PAC-3, a slimmer missile programmed<br />
to slam into an incoming rocket. Each<br />
truck-hauled launcher can carry four PAC-2 missiles,<br />
or 16 PAC-3s.<br />
The second US battery is expected to be operating<br />
by mid-month on the other side of the<br />
mountain.<br />
As a group of reporters arrived on the site, dull<br />
thuds could be heard as Turkish tanks engaged<br />
in a live-fire exercise in the middle distance, their<br />
shells sending up plumes of smoke and dirt.<br />
The German group of 300 men is 60 miles away<br />
defending the city of Kahramanmaras, with a population<br />
of some 440,000, while two Dutch batteries<br />
watch over the city of Adana, 140 miles to the west.<br />
In all, some 3.5 million people are being protected<br />
by the operation, military spokesmen said.<br />
The Dutch have been in Turkey before, with<br />
missile-defense batteries deployed in 1991 and<br />
2003 during the first and second Gulf wars. For<br />
Germany, this is the first foreign deployment of its<br />
missile-defense capabilities.<br />
NATO and Turkish military spokesman repeat<br />
that the deployment is purely defensive in nature,<br />
and isn’t a prelude to the establishment of a nofly<br />
zone in Syria. They are also keen to emphasize<br />
that Turkey has its own robust air-defense capabilities<br />
that would allow it to deal easily with any<br />
threat from Syrian aircraft. What it lacks is the<br />
sophisticated anti-missile capability provided by<br />
the Patriot systems, built by Raytheon.<br />
“There is no way that it could support a no-fly<br />
zone or any offensive operation,” said Col. Steve<br />
Richmond, who commands the Gaziantep operation.<br />
Putting the batteries on Turkish military bases<br />
means the allies don’t have to bring in more<br />
troops to protect their forces. But it required<br />
some adjustments by Turkey’s all-male military:<br />
accommodating women such as Capt. Leslie<br />
Dembeck, who commands the first battery to go<br />
operational above Gaziamtep.<br />
German troops are stationed further from the<br />
border, on another military base on a wooded hillside<br />
above Kahramanmaras, the site of a famous<br />
battle in 1920 when the Turks ousted French<br />
forces from the city. Normally based in northern<br />
Germany, they have set up a makeshift operational<br />
headquarters.<br />
Turkish workers are on-site building new barracks<br />
for the German soldiers that, when they<br />
have gone home, members of Turkey’s 700,000strong<br />
military are expected to occupy.<br />
“It would be very good if we don’t fire any<br />
shots. That would be best for the region and for<br />
our own soldiers as well,” said Col. Marcus<br />
Ellermann, the German commander.<br />
Despite Early Criticism, Garegin Njdeh<br />
Film Is Hit with <strong>Armenian</strong> Audiences<br />
NJDEH, from page 1<br />
Director Hrach Keshishyan said the film is a story of boundless love for homeland, heroism,<br />
betrayal and disappointments, and also of unbreakable will, endless faith and dreams.<br />
Young Njdeh is played by actor Shant Hovhannisyan, while Alexanyan portrays older<br />
Njdeh.<br />
“It’s not an easy task to create a character. The challenge is to be able to put yourself in<br />
his shoes, get into his skin, know his blood type, his ways and moves, his daily conduct,<br />
habits… I am honored to have been trusted this role,” said Alexanyan.<br />
The film is set during the First <strong>Armenian</strong> Republic. Warfare fragments show how without<br />
any foreign assistance, relying only on the native mountains and the power of spirit, the people<br />
of Syunik won their victory under Njdeh’s leadership.<br />
During the Soviet years, speaking about the greatest heroes of any USSR member nation<br />
was forbidden, as Soviet authorities were trying to erase them from public memory. The film<br />
authors state that only 70-80 years later it became possible to tell the stories of Armenia’s<br />
national heroes.<br />
The film depicts how due to Njdeh’s rebellious, daring spirit, inflexible will and bravery<br />
Syunik avoided sharing Nakhichevan’s and Nagorno Karabagh’s fate. With active hostilities<br />
he neutralized the treaty signed in 1920 between Armenia and Soviet Russia, by which three<br />
major regions of Armenia — Nakhichevan, Nagorno Karabagh and Syunik — were to be<br />
passed over to Azerbaijan with a status of autonomous regions.<br />
“Geographically, Syunik is the spine of our motherland, without which Armenia cannot<br />
exist,” Njdeh tells his soldiers in the film.<br />
Part of the three-hour movie was shot in Sofia, where Njdeh lived after leaving Armenia.<br />
In 1944 Soviet troops entered Bulgaria, and shortly after Njdeh was taken under arrest, giving<br />
up a chance to flee to Vienna.<br />
“I have more serious reasons to stay … I am bound to life only to an extent I still feel it as<br />
my duty to serve Armenia”, he said prior to his arrest.<br />
He was transferred to Bucharest, from there to Moscow and put to prison in Lyubyanka.<br />
In 1946, he was sent to Yerevan, where he was sentenced to 25 years of confinement.<br />
He spent the years between 1948-1952 in Vladimir prison, then until the summer of 1953<br />
in a secret prison in Yerevan. Njdeh’s transfer to Yerevan prison was related to an attempt to<br />
mediate between the Dashnaks and the Soviet leaders to create a collaborative atmosphere<br />
between the two sides. After long negotiations with the state security service of Soviet<br />
Armenia, Njdeh and (Minister of Internal Affairs) Devejian prepared a letter in Yerevan prison<br />
(1953) addressed to the ARF leader Simon Vratsian, calling on him for cooperation with the<br />
Soviets regarding the issue of the <strong>Armenian</strong> struggle against Turkey. However, the communist<br />
leaders in Moscow refused to send the letter.<br />
The final part of the movie is more emotional, when Njdeh is allowed to meet his grandchild<br />
he had never met. The stoic general collapses when he takes his granddaughter into his<br />
embrace. With equal warmth he takes a handful of soil of his motherland and takes it to<br />
Vladimir prison, where he dies in 1955. Only decades after his death, in 1992, the prosecution<br />
of the third Republic of Armenia, Njdeh was justified, something he never needed.<br />
The film’s budget was $7 million.<br />
Eurasian Development Bank Suggests New<br />
Program with Participation of Armenia<br />
YEREVAN (Armenpress) — Eurasian<br />
Development Bank’s (EDB) Centre for<br />
Integration Studies has published a report<br />
titled, “The Customs Union and Neighboring<br />
Countries: Models and Instruments of Mutually<br />
Beneficial Partnership.” The study analyzes the<br />
models and forms of cooperation between the<br />
existing integration organizations, in particular<br />
the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur,<br />
and countries that are not their members<br />
and/or do not border them.<br />
The representative of the press office of EDB,<br />
Yulia Ostrukhova, said the report analyzes cooperation<br />
between the EU and the Balkan countries,<br />
which is aimed at achieving their full membership<br />
of the EU and with the countries of<br />
Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus (including<br />
the EU’s Eastern Partnership program) and the<br />
Mediterranean which takes form of a system of<br />
partnership and cooperation agreements and the<br />
implementation of plans of actions in the framework<br />
of the European Neighborhood Policy.<br />
“The Customs Union could propose to its current<br />
and future partners various models of<br />
interaction and additional instruments of cooperation,”<br />
says Vladimir Yasinsky, managing<br />
director for research at EDB. “This is specifically<br />
important for the development of foreign economic<br />
ties of the emerging Eurasian Economic<br />
Union.”<br />
The research reviews possible schemes of<br />
cooperation between the Customs Union/CES<br />
and Armenia, Moldova and Tajikistan. The<br />
authors propose to launch a Eurasian<br />
Partnership program to foster deeper integration<br />
and multilateral cooperation. This program<br />
could be used to develop both bilateral and multilateral<br />
relationships taking into account the<br />
specifics of each partner. These could be structured<br />
based on agreements and joint plans of<br />
action (as in the European Neighborhood<br />
Policy) and on the participation in joint programs.<br />
“A flexible and pragmatic approach should be<br />
used to develop relationships between the CES<br />
and the countries of the Eurasian continent.<br />
Our report proposes a wide range of approaches<br />
to building economic integration based on<br />
international experience in this area,” says<br />
Evgeny Vinokurov, director of the Centre for<br />
Integration Studies.<br />
Eurasian Development Bank is an international<br />
financial institution founded by Russia<br />
and Kazakhstan in January 2006 with the mission<br />
to facilitate the development of market<br />
economies, sustainable economic growth and<br />
the expansion of mutual trade and other economic<br />
ties in its member states. EDB’s charter<br />
capital exceeds US $1.5 billion. The member<br />
states of the Bank are the Republic of Armenia,<br />
the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of<br />
Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian<br />
Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan.<br />
Georgia Celebrates St.<br />
Vardanants Day with<br />
Charity Concert<br />
TBILISI — On February 9, at 5 p.m. the<br />
Hayartun Cultural Center of the Diocese of the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Apostolic Orthodox Holy Church<br />
hosted a charity concert, dedicated to St.<br />
Vardanants Day at the Tbilisi Art Hall.<br />
A charity exhibition and sale were organized<br />
in tandem. Song and dance ensembles, several<br />
artists and singers were scheduled to perform<br />
at the concert. All of the proceeds will be donated<br />
to the Syrian <strong>Armenian</strong> Relief Fund.<br />
St. Vardanants Day is celebrated in memory<br />
of the <strong>Armenian</strong> Commander Vardan<br />
Mamikonyan and his 1,036 martyrs during the<br />
Battle of Avarayr. The holiday is celebrated at<br />
the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> churches throughout the world<br />
each year.